Christmas Time

(From Office Blog, Following blog entry took place on December 22th, 2006)

Well its festive season all around. Merry Christmas to all those who read my blog.

This will be the first Christmas that I will be spending away from my family and most of my friends. Reminds me of being like Ebenezer Scrooge from “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens.

Some of the cubicles around me are pretty decorated with Christmas articles, yet my cubicle is so empty and cold, like my heart. Just me, some technical documents and a computer from which I am typing this blog entry.

Since I am not entitled to any annual company gifts, I was planning to get a Playstation Portable for myself. Might spent this Christmas and New Year hacking, tweaking and of course playing with the PSP. I am also eagerly waiting to get my hands on Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.

As far as projects are concerned I am breaking my head on Web Services Enhancement 3.0 in trying to use it to read information of Certificates stored in a local computer. Absolute chaos and trying to make some sense out of it.

I conclude my post with a quote from “A Christmas Carol” (one of my favorite lines from the play), it is a dialog said to Fred (Scrooge’s Nephew) by Scrooge when he comes to invite his Uncle for Dinner on Christmas Day at his house and in response Scrooge says “Humbug…a time when you find yourself a year older and not an hour richer”, it kind of means that we are all ready to suffer rather than die given a choice, even though death ceases all the suffering.

"Programming" Extreme (The Project Saga Part - II)

(From Office Blog, Following blog entry took place on December 13th, 2006)

(Note this is a very technical Blog entry, I don't expect all people who read this to understand it completely, which is OK)

It was not until I came into projects, I understood the concept of testing completely. Back in the academy we had a short module on “Software Testing” which covered the concepts of how software is tested, related modules were “Software Quality Management” and “Software Engineering at Cognizant” etc. These modules were apart from our core module of DotNet Technology.

In due course of the time during training, we got to write xUnit Test Cases (NUnit in mine) in excel sheets, filling out various parameters and details of the tests and if its a pass / fail etc. But I never managed to get a clear cut picture of “What is the difference in introducing Testing in a Procedure Oriented Approach and Object Oriented Approach.”

My previous encounters with programming methodologies before joining Cognizant was back in the college days when I used to do a lot of procedure oriented programming in C, everything from writing “Hello, World!” to Operating System Kernels to Virtual Machines and under these scenarios “Testing” was more like (This just a general approach),

1. Think of how the problem can be broken down into simpler functions

2. Write them or expresses them in an Algorithmic flow

3. Implement each functions in Pseudocode

4. Convert to the “Pseudocode” to the respective programming language (C in mine)

5. Run the code to get the expected output

6. If not, debug the program and run again till the expected output is achieved

Here debugging was essentially testing the workability of your code and as far as Programming Kernels and Virtual Machines go the debugging of the internal working of the systems have to be debugged manually by you using a custom made debugger preferably rather than depending on debuggers like “gdb” etc which cannot be used effectively in environments like Kernel Debugging.

During the training and back in college when introduced to the concept of “Unit Testing”, my thoughts were kind of same, “write the code” to achieve the goal and then “test the code, to see if it is doing what it is supposed to do.” When I came into projects I was assigned the task of taking a class on “NUnit” and how its used as a standard unit testing tool for DotNet Technologies. On probing further on using NUnit as a unit testing tool, I came across a page on Test Driven Development in .Net in Code Project, which explained the very idea of how one should be using Unit Tests as a trigger for writing the code and not the other way.

Now this was pretty confusing in the beginning, I mean all these days I have been doing my programming the other way around. So I dug deeper into the origins of Test Driven Development (in Wikipedia) and finally reached the concepts of “Agile Software Development Techniques” and “Extreme Programming.” Now where does all of this lead us, back in college I did a learn a bit on “Software Engineering” and during training a little more (It was a terribly boring subject for me in both places). Going through various “models” of software development “Waterfall”, “Iterative”, “Spiral” etc… the list goes on. But these model are more or less a hardcore theory approach where all these Requirements, Analysis, Design, Coding, Testing, etc come into play, but none could be visualized by me in case of a practical scenario.

Agile Software Development from where Extreme Programming methodology was derived uses the more practical attributes of these theoretical models and it was from the Chrysler C3 Project that Extreme Programming took off, Kent Beck who lead the team in the project asked the team members to tests their coded units rather than as a whole program and the framework that they developed for such unit testing (initially made in SmallTalk) was ported to Java and called JUnit and then the ideology was borrowed to NUnit. It was from here that the Test Driven Development Philosophy took off.

The basic guidelines for Test Driven Development are (from the article above)

1. Write a test.
2. Run the test. It fails to compile because the code you’re trying to test doesn’t even exist yet! (This is the same thing as failing.)
3. Write a bare-bones stub to make the test compile.
4. Run the test. It should fail. (If it doesn’t, then the test wasn’t very good.)
5. Implement the code to make the test pass.
6. Run the test. It should pass. (If it doesn’t, back up one step and try again.)
7. Start over with a new test!

This new idea was pretty strange to me, writing a test and then coding it. I heard something like this back in the academy but I thought it was more like a theoretical approach and not a practical one, since we never did any development like this. So I decided to try it out myself and create a small sample program (I have no method to attach it as of now). Worked like a charm, fail first then make it a success.

Currently I am preparing a presentation on NUnit and Test driven philosophy based on the materials I got and will post a link as soon as it is completed. Meanwhile you can take a look at some of the good documents I got on Extreme Programming, Test Driven Development and NUnit at the bottom (I will try to find a method to attach the documents as a part of my blog, as of Now ELTs cant see these documents since their internet access is restricted).

Exteme Programming and Test Driven Development Philosophy has certainly “malloc() ed” space in my heart not only did this give me a new insight into Software Development, but it gave me a much larger and broader perspective of how Testing and Development go hand-in-hand , but my first love is and always will be into Procedure Oriented Programming especially “Systems Programming” and cannot be replaced .

Further Reading and References:

• Test Driven Development (From Wikipedia)
• Test Driven Development in .Net (From The Code Project)
• Extreme Programming (From Wikipedia)
• Test Driven Development using NUnit
• NUnit Homepage & Documentation

Project Times, Finally!!! (The Project Saga Part - I)

(From Office Blog, Following blog entry took place on December 7th, 2006)

After a 2 month long ordeal in the Academy undergoing training starting from Java Technologies and ending up with Dotnet Technologies, the feelings were pretty mixed, there were the good times, the bad times and the ugly times. Some moments were memorable and some were pretty much forgettable. But as a whole it felt good to come out from a school like situation after leading a college life for about 4 years.

The project scenarios are pretty much different, my batch was placed in the IME vertical and we were all asked to report to Navalur Cognizant on 27th. After Monday morning blues, and waiting in the outside hall sitting in the couch from 8.00 A.M to 10.30 A.M our batch rep managed to get the Project allotment list. About 5 to 6 from our batch was placed in Siruseri, the rest was placed in Navalur itself.

JaKe from my batch and I got into a D&B based Project. After a meet with the project manager who gave us a brief introduction on the project, we were introduced to the project team by the person who was going to onsite for the project. We were also told that the project was still in its initial phases. First thing I did like to point out is that the degree of freedom is very different from academy, but with that also comes more responsibility. We were given some documents and asked to get knowledge on the project, but unlike in the academy there was no one to breathe down your shoulders to see if you are doing what you have been told. But this doesn’t mean that you can just laze off and do nothing either, you are expected to gain knowledge about the project in that allotted period of time.

One thing I certainly liked about the area is there are no fixed break timings once you are in the project, you can take breaks when you feel like “you” need one. Lunch timings are not also as strict, lunch timings are from 1.00 P.M to 3.00 P.M and can have lunch anytime in that period. But more importantly the emphasis on projects is self learning and knowledge gaining through sources that are available about the project and the technologies that are involved in it. Another thing that I experienced for first time in my life is “Official Meetings” about the project, where discussions about the project status, document preparation, problems being faced in project etc are discussed.

But not all is very comfortable, getting a system to sit was a bit tough since most are occupied and we had to hunt for seats with a vacant seat list. Some of my friends got seats that are 1 floor apart from the project teams. Getting the systems is the easy part, the next comes the software installation part where you have to raise requests in a “Resource Allocation Management System” and have to get approved by different levels of management before you can get software installed on you system, this process can take upto 3 to 4 days depending on how fast your requests are processed. Yet another problem is the non availability of an ID card which is used to access the project areas, since ELTs are not provided with ID card at the time of allocation we have no choice but to tailgate other associates who hold such ID cards and gain access to the areas, most of the time there is no problem since there is someone always using the door, but sometimes if nobody is around the premises we have to wait for someone to come to the door and unlock it so that we can get in or get out.

One good thing about project scenario is you get access to internet which is a sense of relief compared to the situation in “Training”, where information is restricted to intranet sites. My personal opinion is that all the ELTs should be given access to “Wikipedia” and specific sites like “MSDN” and “Sun’s Java Documentation” depending upon their technology stream since they host a wealth of information and reference material. The best of all is you are “allowed” to access your regular mail sites between 1.00 P.M and 2.00 P.M, which wasn’t always true at the academy, where most of the time when I went to check mails at the library, it was too much queue or simply the sites were blocked or thrown out saying no mail checking or browsing.

This is just the beginning and there is more to come, hope to write more about my experiences in project soon…

A Rainy Mess (Stories from the Academy)

(From Office Blog, Following blog entry took place on October 19th, 2006)

I think the Rainy Season kicked off in Chennai today and most of the people must be relieved from the scorching summer heat. But I dont like rain and started off rather badly.

After wating in a bus stand crowded with people on all sides trying not to get wet I finally got on the Cognizant Bus to Siruseri. But the ride wasnt smooth either the window panes above the seat I was seated was leaking with a time period of 1 drop in every 30 or 40 seconds. Sign of bad luck, after about an hour and quarter minutes at 9.05 A.M, I reached the Siruseri Campus but I was lucky to have my umbrella and cap and I thought it would shield me from rain but the campus ground had rising water. My shoe was half deep in water and the winds were pretty strong and it got my pant bottoms wet, add to that my entire bag’s side also got wet.

The entrance to the Campus was also wet, I met my friend there who borrowed my umbrella to go back to the security post, I quickly made my way up to the 3rd floor where my class was situated placed my wet bag on the floor, logged in the computer and locked it and then quickly made my to the nearest restroom and spent another 10 minutes there trying to dry my shoes, socks and pant bottoms. Time now is 9.20 A.M no time for breakfast and no morning coffee yet. So went back to class and sat down to check mails when I saw my friend come in asking me to accompany him to the library to exchange a due book. I said O.K and accompanied him to the library, I was also feeling pretty cold by now, also the cafeteria in the top two floors were full. So after returing the books we both went to the groundfloor cafeteria to have cup of hot drinks. We sat down in the table and time was around 9.45 A.M and since we werent given any specific instructions to be in the class from 9.30 to 10.30 A.M today we thought we will have the hot drinks and go.

Now this was the setting, we had a table in front of us with two non-ELTs having coffee and chatting away. Similar situation behind us but they were ELTs. Then I suddenly a person came to us and asked which batch we were and dint we have the “Hi Touch Sessions” (Ours got finished sometime back) We said “No” and he asked us to go back to classes soon after the drink. My friend was quick in drinking in the hot drink but I am not so quick so he left quickly and I had my drink at my normal pace. This is when I noticed voices around my back, I turned around and saw that my friend who took the umbrella was standing there and there was a Fat Guy with Black Shirt (FGBS from now on) who was scolding them. Then he began scolding the persons behind me and I knew I was next in line but I couldnt waste my drink so I sat there having the rest of my drink. The conversation behind me was pretty funny the FGBS was asking the ELTs “What they were doing and which batch they were from ? etc” then he was telling them that this is not a coffee shop and one shouldnt drink the coffee like this, but like a professional. Now this FGBS is blabbering about this and I could see the non ELTs (ie permanent staff) in front of me more or less drinking coffee in the same fashion as the ELTs behind me, How Ironic !!!

I finished my drink and went over to the dust bin put in the empty cup and was taking some water from the water dispenser suddenly, I felt a pat on my back, I got up with a half filled tumbler and looked it was the FGBS

FGBS: Which Batch are you from ?

Me (Staring him with a half filled tumbler): CHN06-DotNEt-022

FGBS: You dont have any classes, what are you doing here ?

I was looking at him for a second, then I drank my glass of water. Kept the tumbler back in position. And turned to talk to him.

Me: I had to dry up my shoes and lost time. So I was having some coffee.

FGBS: So did all of us, but you dont see us wasting time.

I was thinking of back answering, but then it struck me these guys just want to show who is in authority and any number of excuses are not going to please them. So…

Me: O.K I am Sorry

FGBS is still looking at me expecting to say something

Me (In a confused voice): I will not repeat this again

FGBS (eyes lighted up as though I said some kind of right answer): Yeah dont repeat this, Please dont…

I just turned and walked out of there. But all of this started turning my thought process and I did an analysis of what happened there. And some questions popped into my mind.

1. I came in late by 9.05 A.M (working hours start from 9.00 A.M so I m already due)and skipped my breakfast so that I could make up for the lost time and I needed atleast a coffee or some hot drink so that I could feel warm after getting wet by rain especailly in the foot region. This FGBS was so rude that he just wanted to know why I was not in my class, and the justification he gave was like it was also raining for them so what ? I dont know what time he had come in but it was definitly earlier than me had his coffee and breakfast and then was running around catching people or he was going to have breakfast after catching people in case 1 he had the luxury of eating breakfast so the hell with others or in case 2 he is going to waste company time after catching us to have his breakfast, either way Is this ethical or moral to scold a person without knowing the complete reason why the person was behaving that way ? I dont know you tell me.
2. This was the question on how he handled the ELTs when the non-ELTs in front of me was having coffee in a similar fashion. I need not explain more, think over it.
3. Human body needs energy to do work and excess is sorted as body Fat, the ratio of body fat depends on the amount of work done…so tell me who is wasting time

Anyway after this incident I went to my class and by 10.00 A.M we had a DotNET expert lecture which turned out be very horrible (the most horrible in the last 16 yrs of my student life) and I developed a migrane. This just turned out be one of those days that everything seems to go wrong. Hoping to see the better side of Cognizant on some other day, but definitely not today…

iPod Alternatives

(From Office Blog, Following blog entry took place on October 9th, 2006)

The want of a portable entertainment device led me to hunt for current range of high end portable entertainment devices (Price Range 10,000 to 20,000 Rupees). iPod Video is what everybody said, I have always been a person who was against the iPod Mania, simply because its not worth paying 16k just to hear songs from a hard drive based device that has limited support for audio formats and requires a proprietary software such as iTunes to download music into it. The hunt began in Ritche Street this weekend.

Before I begin the review, if you are an iPod Fanatic and dont own an iPod and planning to buy one please read through and it might change your mind. If you are a portable enternainment seeker and considering alternatives to iPod this is a must read, if you own an iPod and you dint spent money on it or considering alternatives please read on and finally if you own an iPod and dont want to break your heart on the 16k you spent / wasted dont read from this point onward.

• Audio Player Alternative (Cowon iAUDIO)

  Cowon entered the digital audio player market in October 2000 with the introduction of their first MP3 player, the iAUDIO CW100. In March 2001 the iAUDIO CW100s was released, a revised model of the previous players. After this they diversified their product range to both Flash Based and Hard Drive based players and currently provide competition to Apple iPod Series.
  The one I am reviewing is iAUDIO X5, it a direct contender for iPod Video.X5 has a list of features that provides a lot of value compared to iPod, for starters it has USB On-The-Go, uses no propreitary software to transfer music / videos to it i.e. you can just plug it into a computer’s USB port and start drag-drop files. It supports a wide variety of audio formats ranging from MP3, WMA, OGG to rare formats like FLAC (Audiophiles will love this).Apart from this we also have support for displaying picture formats like JPG, BMP etc. It also plays MPEG-4 video @ 15 fps. Extra features like FM Radio and Voice recording is also available. It comes in 20 G.B, 30 G.B and 60 G.B formats and it is competitivly priced against iPod Video variants. The 30 G.B Costs around Rs. 15,000. The X5 comes in two version the Standard X5 and X5L which has a rated battery life of 14 Hrs, the L is 4mm thicker but boasts of 35 Hrs of Battery life. Practically you should get atleast 30 Hrs

  

  iPod Video

  

  Cowon iAUDIO X5

• Playstation Portable (PSP)
  
  This is from the Playstation family of entertainment products from Sony. This is in literal sense a true mobile entertainment device and it caught my attention. Even though iPod and iAUDIO are strictly audio entertainment devices with limited Video support and very little games support. This device is an all-in-one entertainment device with all features ranging from gaming to listening music to seeing pictures and movies.This is from the Playstation family of entertainment products from Sony. This is in literal sense a true mobile entertainment device and it caught my attention. Even though iPod and iAUDIO are strictly audio entertainment devices with limited Video support and very little games support. This device is an all-in-one entertainment device with all features ranging from gaming to listening music to seeing pictures and movies.

  

  Playstation Portable

  Hardware Specs

  CPU: 2 32-bit MIPS processors
  Memory: Main - 32MB / Embedded Dram - 4MB
  Display: 4.3in diagonal, 16:9 Widescreen TFT LCD, 480 x 272 pixels, capable of displaying 16.77 million colors
  Communication: 802.11b Wireless
  Input / Output: USB 2.0, Infrared, Memory Stick PRO Duo (upto 2GB)
  Game cartridge slot: UMD (Universal Media Disc) (1.8 GB)
  Size: 6.7 x 0.9 x 2.9 in. (170 x 23 x 74mm)
  Weight: (with UMD disc installed) 10.2 oz. (290g)
  Power: Rechargeable lithium-ion 1800 mAh battery

  The main attraction of PSP is ofcourse playing games that comes in Propreitary UMD Discs that cost around Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 depending on the game. The Device also has a memory stick slot that can accept Memory Stick Pro Duo upto 2 GB (which is the current maximum size). PSP also plays MP3, ATRAC3 and ATRAC3plus sound formats, you can see pictures in JPG format only and play videos in MPEG-4 format. With a very large LCD screen viewing ought to comfortable. But the top up is the fact that you can hack your PSP firmware to get more functionality out of it.

  Coming to connectivity USB is the standard interface in addition to that you also have IR and Wi Fi connectivity that helps you to connect with other PSPs and play multiplayer games which gives added value to the device. With Wi Fi connectivity you can browse the internet and stream media in your PSP.

  Ofcourse there is a downside to all this short battery life only about 8 hours. But if you are only looking for a audio entertainment device go for iAUDIO X5. All this comes at a cost of Rs. 10,500 in Ritche Street but is costly in Sony Retail Shops costs around Rs. 13,500

Conclusion if you are a Audio Freak Go for iAUDIO X5 since it has support for FLAC format also and is a favorite among Audiophiles. If you want full fledged entertainment device go for Playstation Portable. And finally about me I am saving all my money for a Playstation Portable which I hope to buy before the end of this year ;-).

Images And Specifications Courtesy Wikipedia

Weekend Suffering

(From Office Blog, Following blog entry took place on October 9th, 2006)

This weekend turned out be a horrible one. The “Saturday” morning went fine without much hitches and I went out to pay some dues and to meet a friend. But due to the consistent sweating I had the small congestion in my chest took a turn for the worst by the night and I could feel the pleghm hardening in my chest as the day progressed and after going to bed things dint become any better.

It started off with a dream I had in the middle of my sleep. The dream started off peacefully with me walking into a building that was surrounded by a very black background. On entering the building and closing the door I noticed that something was not right and suddenly I was all sorts of distorted and disturbing colours. And the place turned chaotic with me be thrown about in a moving house, it felt like being in a roller coaster but without anything to hold me in place and then I remember getting up my bed and panting heavily out-of-breath, and I could feel the weezing sound in my chest and I knew I needed medical Attention immediatly without which I would take an LoP leave the very next day, I checked the watch and showed only 1.30 A.M, bad time to catch a doctor and then I took a puff from my Ventolin Inhaler and lay down facing the cieling and keeping my chest in an upward position to assist me to breathe easily. By 5.30 A.M I had another out-of-breath experiece and I went out of the bedroom to the dining hall and sit there and took another puff from the Ventolin Inhaler, also kind of lost my sleep and was watching some mallu channels in the common T.V. by that time I also SMSed my friend I went to meed the other day about my worsening condition. And then I feel asleep on the dining table. Then I got up by 7.30 A.M and went back to bed slept for about 2 hours and got up at about 9.30 after which I decided to go by to any near by hospital.

I called up my friend and said about the situation he said he will accompany me and came ASAP to my hostel on his way he tried to find out any hospitals present near by my hostel and he even met up with a chest specialist but the guy refused as he had to go out that Sunday monrning. Anyway after he reached my hostel we started out in search of a clinic near by and finally found one that was pretty close by. We entered the clinic, and the general physician agreed to take a look. I basically hate the environment in clinics and hospitals, too much sound of childern crying from injections and one thing I fear most in my life is to get an injection espcially in my butt.

My friend and I waited for about 1 hr before our token number reached and then the doctor diagnosed me and after looking at my previous medical transcripts he increased a the dosage of most medicines and also added a couple of new medicines and a new inhaler to replace my current inhaler. And just when I was relieved that there were no injections, he suggested that I take and injection and he prescribed the medication to the nurse. “Murphy’s Law” at work, I went inside the room and the nurse was preparing the injection,

Me: I hate injections

Nurse: Why ?

Me (Damn What Will I say): Its painful

Nurse: O.K, Ready

Me (Happily showing my arm): Here you go

Nurse: No, No, Hips its the safest

Me: What??! But is there no other way, come on do it on my arm

Nurse: Come on its will all be over soon

Me (Damn you Murphy, I reluctanly lowered my pant): I usually cry when I get injections

Nurse: What are you going to cry?

Me: Yes if it pains, I m very scared of injections

Nurse (Poking the needle in the right upper cheek of my butt): See its just like an ant bite

Me: Thats what they all say before the injection

Nurse: See it finished, did it pain

Me: Ya a little

Nurse: It will hurt a little in the night, so try using a hot bag incase it pains too much

Me: O.K

And then she handed a small paper bag and said I should take the tablet inside it after dinner. I said O.K and left with my firend on a medicine hunt. We got all the tablets etc from a near by shop, it was the inhaler that was causing all the trouble. Nobody had the capsule version of the inhaler only the spray version, and the doctor insisted that I have to take the capsule version as it is stranger than the spray counterpart. Our journey led us to T-Nagar where we found the inhaler device. Then we started our journey home.

In the meanwhile I consulted my family doctor in TVM and he suggested to leave out that singly night tablet since it may contain “steroids” and I wasnt in that much of a critical state. However he did say that continue with the inhaler for 10 days instead of 15 days as the doctor prescribed since it does contain “Cortisone”. Finally after a 4 hour ordeal I ended up in my hostel and bid good bye to my friend who accompanied with me all throughout the ordeal.

The rest of the day passed without much incidences and I confined to my bed reading some books and killing time. In the night had my medication and went straight away to bed. In the morning I felt a bit warmer and drowsier that other days due to the heavy antibiotic medication I am in, but atleast I avoided a LoP Leave in that way I am satisfied.

unPrepared Talks (Stories from the Academy)

(From Office Blog, Following blog entry took place on October 6th, 2006)

Well today wasnt my day to my unPrepared Talk, but none the less its not going to differ by any bit even if I were my day since all my talks are unPrepare. My initial intend was to present a discussion on movies titled “M For Movies”. It ended up being a talk on realities of life.

I am more of a Technical Speaker (this is was mistakenly taken as speaking “Technically” for corporates by the lady who was evaluating us and mistook me for a lateral entry and not a fresher. Of course these corporate people must be thinking the corporate way) and I dont usually speak on General Topic unless I m forced to do so. One open fact is I hate speaking in public be it Technical or General. Hey dint I just mention that I was more of a Technical speaker well I dint say “I am a Technical Speaker” I said “I am more of a Technical Speaker” there is a difference as you can see.

After the talk we had a discussion on my talk and there were both positive and negative feed back, one thing I lacked was eye contact and thats because during technical speaking you need to focus both on the slides and the audience. And I was justifying why I was the way I am and the lady said I got an “Attitude” problem. Hmm…coming to think of it I may have because of the fact that the realities of life I mentioned in the talk has hardened me and Sorry to the people who cant adjust to my attitude, some things just cant change.

P.S: Technical Speaking is not speaking in and for Corporates only, it also includes talks that you have done in your life other than in corporates. It could be on anything and everything technical eg: Science Projects in School, Your Paper Presentations, Concepts of Proof, Project Presentations or Seminars etc that you have presented that does not focus on any general topics but on specific topics like Technology, Science etc that you have applied to achieve something

Multi-Skilled ??? I Think Not (Stories from the Academy)

(From Office Blog, Following blog entry took place on October 6th, 2006)

After the switch from Java to DotNet our coordinator and batch owner were trying to justify the fact that the switch in streams must not be considered negative and must be taken in a positive sense by saying that we should not be disappointed and we should look at this as an opportunity to learn both Java and DotNet and its always good to be “Multi-Skilled”

I dont completly disagree with them, but I got somepoints of my own in this matter. The 1st thing that came to my mind was the english saying “Jack of all trades, master of none”, of course you can take it in both negative and positive sense. But considering the fact that only learning 7 days of Java dosent allow you get the “skill” in Java and then switching over to DotNet dosent help you to get the “Multi-Skill” more over I prefer to learn as much as of one Technology before I jump to another.

Another pointer was that you work in DotNet in 6 months and after the project you just jump over to Java learn and try to get the certifications. But I strongly disagree with that fact, I dont know how the IT industry sees this but Me being a student of “Computer Science” cant accept the fact. For me programming is an “Art” and not a “Skill” every line of code a programmer writes is like the lines from a poetry and each program created is as unique as the person who wrote it (unless of course you copy someone else’s program). Programming languages being “only a tool, and not the end” as Gosling stated, one has to learn all about using the tool before one can harness the power of the tool. And one big disadvantage of using programming languages is that if you dont use them for a period of time you tend to forget everything of the langauge even to the extend that writing “Hello, World” becomes a tedious task no matter how much of an expert you are on the language.

Finally I remember a post from a discussion site called Digg there was a topic called “Can you make an expert programmer in 2 months training ?” many people from all over the world posted their view on the topic and most of them had a negative reply. To me this switch was more like the english saying “Well begun, half done”.

Requiem For CHN06AJ044 (Stories from the Academy)

(From Office Blog, Following blog entry took place on October 5th, 2006)

This is the unfortunate Java batch that got switched to DotNet to meet a critical demand in the IME vertical. After having a bad luck streak that has been following me for the last 6 months, that started when I was in the last year of my enginnering, I thought that it had finally ended when the tide of fate finally brought me here.

Being in bad luck is like being in a Hurricane, it hits real hard at first then there is a slight sense of relief as soon as the eye of the Hurrican passes by but many people think that this is the end of the Hurricane and run out of the shelter thinking its safe this is just when the rest of the Hurricane passes by and may god be with the persons who ran out of their shelter. This is exactly what happened to me, I ran out thinking its perfectly safe only to be caught in the next steam of Bad luck.

Yesterday after hearing the news of batch switch I was pretty disappointed and on my way back to hostel in the company bus, it started raining accompanied by thunder and lightning, may a sign of things yet to come or may be a message that life isnt always smooth, even worse I felt that I was responsible for the whole thing in a way that if hadnt come here may be my bad luck wouldnt have dragged the whole batch down the hole. After getting off at my stop I just wished that a lightnining struck; One Shot, One Kill, thats all I ask for end the suffering once and for all. My wish almost came true when I saw a near by transformer got burned out, well atlest I saw sparks fly, may be giving me the message that “Not your time yet, still more suffering to go”. I was thinking “How Sadistic!!!”

All said and done the inevitable fact is we all got to work on DotNet and forget Java.