I haven't been able to write any blogs these days, because I've been busy studying for Certification exams from Sun microsystems. And I plan to write many many more of these, from vendors like Oracle, SeeBeyond, IBM, LOMA (domain certifications) and finally Microsoft. The motivation for writing them is to get such a huge stack of vendor certifications to go with my resume, no one should be able to see the engineering degree. Things went really wrong for four years with that type of (irrelevant) education.
This is the kind of education that I really enjoy. It's directly relevant to the real world, unlike most of what they taught in engineering. It's mostly multiple choice questions, or actual programming assignments. Plus, no one has to go through the horrendous ordeal of reading my handwriting.
I'm enjoying this a lot, it feels just like the good part of college life. Waking up on the day of the exam, thinking "damn, I got up four hours late. Stupid alarm clock...", realizing that I haven't completed even half of the original "preparation plan", riding to the exam center thinking "I'm surely going to fail", waiting for your turn with nervous anticipation and actually passing in the end.
I strongly feel that the whole of education should be restructured this way, starting with the engineering courses. What do you say?
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Object Bootcamp - Place where I learnt things
Since we talk about our work place and all here, here goes nothing.
I switched jobs and now work for a Software Consultancy. It is a kick ass place to be. The culture, the people, the technology. O! I am love with the place. Since I joined newly and I barely have any experience, I had to under go a training called an "Object bootcamp". It is the best thing. EVER! Here's how it works.
The objective of the bootcamp is to teach freshers how to do Object Oriented Design - the agile way. It started off with a brief 20 min discussion on what is OO, what are the concepts in it and the language which we were to use, Java. In my previous company I had a 30 days training on the same! Pfft. What followed for the next 4 days was pure bliss.
We followed Test Driven Ping Pong Pair Program. Pair Programming means 2 people work on the same computer, one person types or drives and the other person reviews, thinks, suggests etc. Test driven programming means, even before we write actual production code, we write a unit test for it and then write production code which makes the test pass. Ping Pong programming means one person writes a test and the other person makes it pass. Then he writes a test and the first person makes it pass and the cycle continues.
We were given different problems which were almost like actual customer problems. Each problem is split up into a number of stories. Each story represents a requirement. We follow 5+15 minute cycles or iterations - 5 minutes for deciding on the necessary classes, their jobs and the first test that we would write and the 15 minutes are for implementing the same in the TDD ping pong way. Oh, and we have to switch pairs every third story. So, we cannot pair with the same person for more than 2 stories. Meaning your code base keeps changing every now and then. (This is where having tests help because if you make a change you can just run all the tests and be sure you dint break anything which the other person already had running.)
The first 2 days were about basic design concepts. Aggregation, Delegation and Inheritance. When to use what? How to decouple classes? How to get tests passing withing 15 minutes etc. The remaining 2 days were about design patterns - How to identify the need to use a pattern, some common patterns, refactoring into a design patter etc.
All in all, it was a great learning experience for me. Given the sort of teaching I was exposed to at my college and also at my previous employer, I always thought the faculty would be shady no matter where you. Boy, was I proved wrong.
On a finishing note: We came across an interesting situation where we had a method in a base class which was returning an instance of one of its derived classes. Is this a good thing? What do you think?
I switched jobs and now work for a Software Consultancy. It is a kick ass place to be. The culture, the people, the technology. O! I am love with the place. Since I joined newly and I barely have any experience, I had to under go a training called an "Object bootcamp". It is the best thing. EVER! Here's how it works.
The objective of the bootcamp is to teach freshers how to do Object Oriented Design - the agile way. It started off with a brief 20 min discussion on what is OO, what are the concepts in it and the language which we were to use, Java. In my previous company I had a 30 days training on the same! Pfft. What followed for the next 4 days was pure bliss.
We followed Test Driven Ping Pong Pair Program. Pair Programming means 2 people work on the same computer, one person types or drives and the other person reviews, thinks, suggests etc. Test driven programming means, even before we write actual production code, we write a unit test for it and then write production code which makes the test pass. Ping Pong programming means one person writes a test and the other person makes it pass. Then he writes a test and the first person makes it pass and the cycle continues.
We were given different problems which were almost like actual customer problems. Each problem is split up into a number of stories. Each story represents a requirement. We follow 5+15 minute cycles or iterations - 5 minutes for deciding on the necessary classes, their jobs and the first test that we would write and the 15 minutes are for implementing the same in the TDD ping pong way. Oh, and we have to switch pairs every third story. So, we cannot pair with the same person for more than 2 stories. Meaning your code base keeps changing every now and then. (This is where having tests help because if you make a change you can just run all the tests and be sure you dint break anything which the other person already had running.)
The first 2 days were about basic design concepts. Aggregation, Delegation and Inheritance. When to use what? How to decouple classes? How to get tests passing withing 15 minutes etc. The remaining 2 days were about design patterns - How to identify the need to use a pattern, some common patterns, refactoring into a design patter etc.
All in all, it was a great learning experience for me. Given the sort of teaching I was exposed to at my college and also at my previous employer, I always thought the faculty would be shady no matter where you. Boy, was I proved wrong.
On a finishing note: We came across an interesting situation where we had a method in a base class which was returning an instance of one of its derived classes. Is this a good thing? What do you think?
Monday, April 9, 2007
Yet Another Opinion Seeking Blog
Given a choice between money and power, what would you choose? Choose under the premise that they are mutually exclusive. Don't start off with how valid that assumption is etc.
Good Reads
Check out Goodreads. You can find good reviews on books there. You can also give ratings of your own and store the books that you would want to read later.
If you are signing up then make sure that you don't send invite to all your friends in your address book. You can (should) skip that step.
If you are signing up then make sure that you don't send invite to all your friends in your address book. You can (should) skip that step.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Movie Review: Namastey London
It's a must watch. I say, go watch it in PVR; you won't get that feeling if you just watch it on a DVD. Yes, that's the exact feeling that you get when you hear Sudhi sing. The director of this movie has been extremely diligent in picking up scenes to convey his confusion.
After watching the movie, I was compelled to read the reviews. I found this ,totally misleading review.
Well it's true that this movie is not like the usual romantic ones, but it is like the usual flop ones. It is very very prosaic till Akshay Kumar's entry, which is after 42min:54 sec and after that it continues to be so.
The film revolves around the story of a London bred girl of Indian origin. It's about how she wants to marry a man of British origin and how she ends up in India marrying an Indian groom. At the start of the movie, too many issues are presented and throughout the movie it's not clear as to what issue the director is addressing.
Watch out for Katrina's knee length short skirt scenes including the controversial one at Ajmer dargah. The funniest part of the movie is the acting of side actors, like Katrins's mother, Imran's parents etc. You can include even Katrina's acting to that list.
I'll give it 1, no not out of 5, out of 10. That 1 would be for Katrina Kaif. Again, not for her acting.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Blog Strings
I came across Blog Strings in Lifehack. People like me, generally spend most of their time browsing blogs at work place. The only way to do this was to visit a good Blog and then look for their reference blogs.
Now you can find many bloggers and their blogs at BlogStrings.
Now you can find many bloggers and their blogs at BlogStrings.
Idea
How about making an application for portable devices, on which the user should be able to install any sub-application of his choice, so that he can just plug-in the device and the sub-application starts running?
E.g. Say we make an application of our own called "Jobless". We should be able to install Firefox, Winamp etc... on it, so that the user can just plug-in the device on any computer and start using the softwares of his choice.
E.g. Say we make an application of our own called "Jobless". We should be able to install Firefox, Winamp etc... on it, so that the user can just plug-in the device on any computer and start using the softwares of his choice.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Weekly Review: Windows Vista
Good morning and welcome to the second edition of Weekly Review. This week, we're reviewing Microsoft's Windows Vista. I can tell you upfront that this is going to get very controversial: we have two Microsoft haters in this group. But only two people in the group have actually installed and used Microsoft Vista Ultimate, so here are the facts and opinions:
FACT: Vista editions (home basic, business, ultimate, etc. ) have VERY different features. We're talking about Ultimate edition.
FACT: Vista has sold more than 20 million licenses since launch. Very strong sales numbers.
FACT: Results don't just happen.
OPINIONS: [feel free to edit these]
Mine: Once again, Microsoft has gone beyond anything that anyone could expect. Vista looks great, sounds great and runs games much better than XP. It has a more efficient way of dealing with hardware drivers and manages to churn out better performance. The ultimate edition has so many features, it obviates the need for many previously essential software. Disappointed with DVD burning and Speech Recognition though.
Ketan's: Awesome. Couldn't be happier.
Chethan: Still convinced that we're using a transformation pack.
Sudhi, Looking up from manutd website: Vista? Who?
Nithin: "I have slightly less RAM than needed."
Chintu: "You have southpark?"
Pavan: I'm switching to Unix.
Abhi: Vista nodilla man. Thumba kelsa ide.
So there you have it: eight profound opinions. Stay tuned for similar nuggets of wisdom, right here on Together we drown.
FACT: Vista editions (home basic, business, ultimate, etc. ) have VERY different features. We're talking about Ultimate edition.
FACT: Vista has sold more than 20 million licenses since launch. Very strong sales numbers.
FACT: Results don't just happen.
OPINIONS: [feel free to edit these]
Mine: Once again, Microsoft has gone beyond anything that anyone could expect. Vista looks great, sounds great and runs games much better than XP. It has a more efficient way of dealing with hardware drivers and manages to churn out better performance. The ultimate edition has so many features, it obviates the need for many previously essential software. Disappointed with DVD burning and Speech Recognition though.
Ketan's: Awesome. Couldn't be happier.
Chethan: Still convinced that we're using a transformation pack.
Sudhi, Looking up from manutd website: Vista? Who?
Nithin: "I have slightly less RAM than needed."
Chintu: "You have southpark?"
Pavan: I'm switching to Unix.
Abhi: Vista nodilla man. Thumba kelsa ide.
So there you have it: eight profound opinions. Stay tuned for similar nuggets of wisdom, right here on Together we drown.
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