Friday, June 22, 2007

I'm Switching...

After being indecisive for two weeks on which laptop to buy, yesterday I placed an order for the new Macbookpro from Apple. The decision wasn't easy though, because of the following factors
  • Money - As with most Apple products, their notebooks too come for a premium price.
  • OSX - Have been used to Microsoft's OS for the past 13 years. I knew if I choose a mac, it would be worth unlearning for the best.
  • Softwares - Wasn't sure if I could get same or similar softwares for a mac.
  • Support - Apple still doesn't have its footprint in India, but this gave some glimmer of hope.

If I made my mind on the M factor (which would also resolve the Support factor), the air wasn't clear on remaining two factors - OSX & Softwares.

Rory, my colleague and mac fanboy, cleared all my concerns regarding OSX and the softwares available. I thank him for sharing the time & info, which made my decision a lot more smoother. He hasn't looked back @ PC since he switched & guess its the same from me.

Here goes the config

MacBook Pro 15-inch Glossy Widescreen Display
2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB DDR2 SDRAM @ 800Mhz
120GB Serial ATA drive (5400rpm)
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor with 128MB RAM
8x Dual Layer DVD burner

For more details, check the tech specs here.

But the sad reality is.....I need to wait 20 days to lay my hands :(

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Pragmatic software development

The urge to write this post arises from two articles which i read recently. First one being Basil's 'To Be or Not To Be Agile' article, followed by Joel's 'A game of inches'. Have always desired to work for a company whose prinicples & processes are oriented on Agile Maifesto. I am in a similar situation to what Basil describes 'I am an agile software developer doing non-agile software development'.

The other article is from Joel, whom I have been following for 2 years now. His thoughts have had a tremendous impact on my approach & thinking towards software development. This article 'A game of inches' in particular massaged my ego, How...?

All those who have worked with me over the past two years could easily relate to it. They know how critical I can be during the design & development phases of the product. I always wanted to ( & continue to) give the best to make the product better.

My constant critique on design of certain modules of the product, didn't go well with my peers in Silicon Valley (California) & in Silicon Valley of East (a.k.a Bangalore). They felt that me being critical on small things weren't that necessary. They missed the whole point, of why I was being so cirtical & true that I failed to convey the message. The failure on my part can be attributed to the manner in which I used to express my cirticisms. I realized during my farewell at SourceN*, that many of my colleagues weren't against criticisms, rather the manner in which I used to conveyed them. Another good reason why a team needs to adapt Agile principles, where feedbacks are a part of regular development life-cycle rather during farewells.

In Joel's words, 'It takes a mindset of constant criticism to find them. You have to reshape your mind until you're finding fault with everything. Your significant others go nuts. Your family wants to kill you.'

'There are thousands and tens of thousands of these tiny things. And as you fix more and more of these little details, as you polish and shape and shine and craft the little corners of your product, something magical happens.'

I have always believed, 'A person should have the passion in what he does. When the passion dies, just quit! '.


*SourceN, which provided me the fertile ground in honing my techincal skills, work with latest technology, presented me the ideal oppurtunity of co-authoring articles on Javaworld & the ability to manage was an ideal place to work..

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Quotes for the day

'Nothing is more dangerous than an idea if it's the only one you have' - The Pragmatic Programmer

Monday, June 11, 2007

Expressions on email names

Recently, i recieved a fwd from one of my friends; And I wanted to fwd the same to few other common friends, did a look up to skip if anyone was already on the intial mailing list. What caught my eyes were the custom messages against email names. Many of us use custom messages to show current state or feeling to buddies on IM list. Offlate, people seem to be customising their email names to express their thoughts, don't know if its a new trend. Now I wonder, why don't they use email signatures to convey the same?