Gardens to cultivate in 2025
For the first time in awhile, I have a bit of slack. Family, friends, and work have entered a maintenance phase where the course is set and I’m ahead of responsibilities. While I typically avoid setting specific goals (happy enough to just keep the plates spinning another year), in 2025 I’m aiming to use that slack to get more out of the things I do.
Spanish
This year I aim to get my Spanish up to a child’s conversational level, i.e. A2 CEFR.
The area I live in was a Spanish land grant back in 1842: Cañada de las Uvas Rancho. Fast-forward to today: over one in four Californians speak Spanish, most of the radio stations in my area are Spanish language, and people’s Mexican heritage is often on display. Speaking Spanish isn’t for basic communication (most people speak English) but to understand the culture of California.
Practicing a language is also good mental exercise. I may not have my juvenile neuroplasticity, but I’m always surprised what fits in the head with some spaced repetition. And, I’m not alone: Caitria the polyglot is down for a fourth language, and we’ve both been putting laps in on duolingo.
Beyond holding down a conversation I have one major Spanish aspiration: I’d like to read / translate Borges and Garcia-Marquez from the original Spanish. I won’t make it there this year, but with continued practice perhaps by the next.
Reading Slowly
In 2024 I rediscovered reading slowly, and I’d like to continue the practice into 2025.
The depth of critical analysis that’s been generated for the classics is incredible – the greatest works so deep I’ll never see the bottom. I’ll continue my habit of reading to read laterally and broadly, but also start to dig into the patches I find rich.
To go deep on a book takes rereading, something I used to do rarely. I mean, it’s hard not to when the books neigh demand it explicitly. In the foreword of Pale Fire the unimpeachable Kinbote notes of his own critique:
… the reader is advised to consult them first and then study the poem with their help, rereading them of course as he goes through its text, and perhaps, after having done with the poem, consulting them a third time.
Honoring Kinbote’s critical tradition, this year I’ll be going a layer deeper on Pale Fire with Brian Boyd’s analysis. My volume of Nabokov also contains Lolita, one of those books I never thought I’d read, but now I feel like I can’t resist.
I’ll continue to process Pynchon’s historical fictions. Last year I read Gravity’s Rainbow, Mason & Dixon and Against the Day. To keep myself oriented on my first reading through I followed along with Slow Learners, a podcast / reading guide, and the Pynchon wiki. Despite it all, GR calls for another read.
Writing
In an enjoyable twist, LLM’s fluency makes me want to write more rather than less. LLMs lend credence to the old theory that human intelligence is founded on language, the idea that writing is thinking. As such LLMs, can engage with me via my written work. So, I’ll continue to try and practice thinking [deeply] by writing [well] this upcoming year.
Practically, that looks like 1) continuing to post here, and 2) finding what posts I like. There’s no social motive, i.e. my audience is myself, but I’d like to post at least once a week to keep in the groove. New ideas aren’t a limiting factor – my queue of posts has been only growing.
Regarding the posts I like, I’ve been tending towards 1) posting quotes with some short response, and 2) deeper analysis. Subject matter is whatever grabs my interest, but it’ll be suited for public consumption from some angle because this is on the web.
Preparing for LLMs
I’d take odds on the software engineering of 2027 having very little to do with actually writing software. I mean, there’ll still be people and organizations responsible for producing software, but some LLM-esque technology will do the actual coding. Continuing the happy path logic, this’ll be a golden age for software development, practitioners armed with commoditized 10x engineering ability.
I imagine being great at software work in 2027 will entail being great at 1) setting product requirements, 2) collaborating with stakeholders , 3) leveraging AI magic, and 4) hopefully setting taste. Not all my favorite work, but I’ll keep my nose to the wind and pick up the skills to keep competitive.
My day to day software engineering work
I think I can deepen my professional software engineering craft in 2025 by:
- Continue to improve at up-front project requirements and estimates; move communication upstream
- Develop bulletproof testing practices
- Take the time to write my best code