Politics...Here I come

This is getting frustrating...No secure ID, no Office mail access, and to top it all, I do not have a BlackBerry. I am completely out of touch with the real world and just 3 days into my vacation. Man, can life be more boring than this? And to top the frustration is the news that the FBT is now on the employee. Which means, my ESOP would get taxed, if I get a car from the company I have to pay the FBT component on that as well (which was previously held by the employer). Now I am thinking, why not to try politics for a change.

There was a nice news today morning, which made me even more determined to try for the post of MLA or MP. All the relatives of MP's now get to travel for free by Air within India. And all the friends and relatives of MP get to travel for free by Air within India. And this bill is actually passed in the Parliament. So now, it pays to be a friend of an MP than work your ass off in a 9-6 job. I am still checking if I have any MPs in my family bloodline. Surely there should be one...No family is perfect :D. We all have our share of hyenas and wolves.

Now, I might sound that I am rambling and ranting out of frustration. But the truth is, Politics is a more profit making business than any other job. Consider this:
1. You do not need to pay for the accomodation
2. You do not need to declare your wealth
3. You do not need to be a BE, MBA, IIT Grad (Well if you are, it means you are over qualified)
4. You do not need to pay for the fuel (The idiots called tax payers would do that for you. Infact, you might even see a Software Engineer filling up your tank in a Shell gas station (thanks to the rising inflation))
5. You do not need to work on deadlines. (Hey, you are a politician. You could hire 10 MBA grads and get them to work on your deadlines. And then take the credit. Afterall, you managed the MBA grads)
6. You do not need to pay for vegetables, fruits, liquor, schooling, No parking fines.

In short, the outflow from your purse would be inversely proportional to the inflow. And in this case, the inflow would never tend to negative.

Lord, if you could make me an MLA of any one constituency (maybe Andipatti would be the best, closer to my home) in the next 10 years, I would break 108 coconuts for you (Out of the tax payer's money, ofcourse)

MS Does not trust SilverLight :)

Saw this ad in rediff.com when signing out:

Does this mean MS simply does not trust SilverLight? Or something else cooking? (ehehheheheaaaaa)

Adobe Flex: The Perfect example of how a framework should not be

There is a growing discontent amongst the developers I have interacted with. And one common thing that bound our discontent is one thing, one thing only (as quoted by Lt. Aldo Raine): "Adobe Flex 3.0"

There is a saying "You realize the importance of something only when have the need for it and it is nowhere around". When we were working on MS .NET Framework with VS IDE till some years ago, we used to crib about the performance of the IDE and other non-important factors. Now when we are stuck inside Eclipse + Flex Builder plugin, "Oh VS 2005 where art thou?"

The point is, Flex is not all that bad. It is just the hype around it that makes it an evil component. And it all starts with the Ux. They use a simple tool like Photoshop (another sin from Adobe's factory) to design jazzy stuffs that it is impossible to achieve the same kind of look and feel in the UI framework code that you have no option but to hack your way around. Now Flash player is sort of Buddy Buddy with it's counterpart criminal Flex. So if it finds we are trying to play with it, it just spits fire and vengeance.

My rantings on Flex would go on as long as we are using it. Once done, I would love to put the following statement on my wall, as a warning to Flex and anyone who uses it"

"The path of the righteous is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the week through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I shall strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger, those who attempt to poison my brothers and destroy them. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee".

The hands of the Lord rest on those who hate Flex.

The World of a crazy programmer

Have seen some real life fundo code and have been amazed at how this would be maintained.

It went something like this:

private static var oGlobalClassAObject = new GlobalClassAObject(new LocalClassB(olapDataClass,false),new URLLoader(new URLRequest("../local/assets/global/returnValidate.xml),false,new XMLList(result.result.data.children));

Needless to say, I was shocked, petrified, p***** off, on seeing this code. And the best part of this story was, a new "less Geeky" guy was asked to maintain this code. He read this code for the most part of the day and then called in sick for the rest of the week (my guess is he was attending interviews to escape out of this mayhem).

I would love to see a proper commented code explaining what each and every parameter of the above class constructor would lead to. A simple one liner would not hurt, would it? And if this API is tested as it is, the chances are, this object definition would end up in the automated test cases as well. So now the virus would spread from the development to quality to validation to customer.

"Always code as if, the person who would be reading it, is a psycho who knows where to catch you".

The Woes of FlexUnit testing

Ant's flexunit task does not run with a native FlexUnit testrunner component. You need to ensure you use the JUnitTestRunner component with task of Ant.

(I learnt it the hardway though :))

import flexunit.junit.JUnitTestRunner;

import flexunit.framework.TestSuite;

private var jUnitTestRunner:JUnitTestRunner;

private function onInit():void{

status.text = "Unit tests running";

jUnitTestRunner = new JUnitTestRunner();

jUnitTestRunner.run(suite(),onAllTestsCompleted);

}

public static function suite():TestSuite{

var _testSuite:TestSuite = new TestSuite;

_testSuite.addTestSuite(MyTestCases);

return _testSuite;

}

private function onAllTestsCompleted():void{

fscommand("quit","");

}

This makes me wonder, why is it named as Shouldn't it be ?

Crossed to kill.

The one thing that can never happen is Development following SCRUM and QM following traditional project management. In this case Development and QM can never do business together. Whereas the philosophy of Agile (and SCRUM as well), is that you do not give the SRS requirements for the entire product upfront. The reason: You do not have the requirements upfront. They appear as you start working on the features of the product. However, the Waterfall model says that you should have all the requirements on the table, reviewed, signed off, etched in memory of the developers and finally on their graves as well. In this situation, this is what happens:

Dev: We have 10 requirements for this sprint to be developed.

QM: And how many to be tested?

Dev: Hmmm....we cannot be so sure now. The sprint has just started. We might reduce or increase the scope based on priorities.

QM: OK. Assume this is the end of the sprint. Then, how many requirements can we test?

Dev: Duh (Pondering what to answer)...

QM: OK forget it. When can I have the requirements

Dev: The SRS would be ready by the end of the day and the development will be starting tomorrow based on the SRS.

QM: (Looks at the SRS) But I see only 10 requirements. Is this all that you are going to be shipping till the end of the year?

Dev: (Losing his patience). Look, we are following SCRUM. We might have the overall scope items, but the SRS will evolve as we progress. We cannot have the entire requirements of month 8 right now.

QM: Then how do you expect the testing team to come up with test cases? We need the requirements to do this.

Dev: But that is what I am saying, you cannot have the requirements for next sprint when we are still in sprint 1.

QM: What sprint?

Dev: What what sprint?

QM: You just said something about sprint...are you planning to run away overnight?

Dev: (Sighs and murmurs the F word) I said Sprint. SPRINT. Meaning an interation in SCRUM.

QM: Don't you dare call me a SCUM. I am not a SCUM. I am the QM of this team.

Dev: OK...Let me clarify here...what model of project are you following?

QM: What do you mean by what model?

Dev: I mean, how are you planning for your tasks?

QM: We have Microsoft Project. We have been having 2 hour meetings for the past 2 months to plan for the next 10 months. We have the qm testing phase starting in Month 6. That is followed by AT in Month 8. Then we do a regression on the reported issues in Month 8 Week 2 and a final issue consolidation on end of of week 3 of Month 8. Then on the next Monday, we start with the analysis of the AT results.........

Dev: (Has just slipped into a coma)

This immediately brought to my mind the Russel Peters video (Chinese and Indian people cannot do business together):

Follow the process, forget the rest

I was chatting with one of my many relatives the other day (I am proud to say my family has 3 generations of software engineers, starting from one who worked on punch cards :)), and this person was talking about how his organization has been working on a product release for the past 2 years. I was dumbstruck, how could somebody work on something for 2 years. When I conveyed my doubt he gave a long sigh and explained that his company focuses on the process of delivering quality products to the customer and hence has left the decision on processes with the Quality Assurance team. Every-time a new release is supposed to happen, the QA raises a red flag about some issue or the other and hence delays the release. One of the important points they like to focus on is documentation.

My idea of a software product is this.

• Based on the market requirements (read this) (The product management team gets the current market requirements and defines the idea. (Not more than 2 weeks)
• Development brainstorms the idea and comes up with a prototype (Max 4 weeks)
• Dev showcases this to the Product Management and gets their confirmation if they are on the right track.
• Product Management signs off the initial level of design, and requests Dev to proceed with the next steps.
• PM shows this to the Customer and if any changes, communicates to the development at the initial stage itself.
• The development continues with the iterative development and in a maximum of 4 months comes up with the final design as requested by the customer.
• Then another 2 weeks of testing. (During these 4 months of development, testing would happen at the end of each month on the monthly milestones).
• A total of 20 weeks (translates into 5 months), the beta is released to the customer.
• Once things are on track, the dev starts with Wave 2 of the requirements.

In this way, we can be sure that we are ahead of our competitors and follow the Agile methodology to the core. We always have time for documentation, processes, standards and quality. What we need first is the confidence of the customer that his requirements are really going where they need to go and not into 50 page MRDs and PRDs which no one would be looking into anyway.

Let's follow Agile, Let's Be Lean.

Till later.

The Long and Short of corporate E-mails

Been in this job for close to 6 years, of sending and receiving mails :), that I now know this first hand. Infact, I am one step ahead when it comes to sending and receiving, do an F9 whenever I want an updated dream. . But jokes apart, I had this sudden rush of emotion when I started blogging this one. We talk about sustainability; Save trees, save planet, save water, save electricity, save fuel, save wood, blah blah, and all that s***. We have missed out one core component, save on e-Mails. I am sure if we stop sending e-mails for one day, we could save power to make us survive for one whole day (I am not sure how environmentalists arrive at this figure but that's how it is so, just shut-up and listen).

When I say we save power through not sending mails, I am talking about all those crap mails which are sent around everyday, and which spams our inbox. And it is not from any fake site selling Viagra or Cialis, it is from our very own colleagues and it is not just the Miss World wallpapers that are sent around, it is something related to work which spams the inbox.

You might be wondering, I must be some sort of Kaam chor (work thief, meaning, person who tries to avoid work). Well not exactly. Just to highlight what I am trying to say, there was an issue a long time ago in one of my many jobs,which actually boiled over into an escalation. One person drafted and sent an e-Mail, to me, a colleague of mine, the culprit, his manager, his VP, his LOB head. Apart from that he sent my manager an FYI, (not sure why he did that).

The culprit's VP forwarded the mail to the field sales colleague who inturn forwarded the mail to the entire Sales management DL. Now this mail was then circulated back to the culprit who replied back with another colleague's contact who happened to work in Culprit's team (without cc'ing the culprit #2). The sales team replied back to the culprit #2 with "Could you please help us here". Now this culprit #2 was a dumbass. Instead of scrolling through the mail and finding out who had initiated the thread, he just picked up any damn section of the thread (in which I was involved) and replied to all. Now if you see, how many iterations the same mail (+ the delta) might have traversed, it actually did one round trip around the world and finally ended in the same team.

Now all you environment philanthropists, come up with a damn idea for making sure jackasses like the one above are punished under some PETA like law which prohibits them from clicking the "Reply All" button in Outlook.

Time to run for a meeting. C ya later.

Tax Exemption of 10K...what it means for you

The initial shock is over and it is now time to dismay. I, as an individual tax payer, am thoroughly disappointed with the budget. I feel the FM should have done some more groundwork/homework before proposing the budget 2009/2010.

LCD prices have been slashed 5% and would cost cheaper. But STB prices are up by 5%. Which means, what you save in LCD, you will have to shell out for Tata Sky, Airtel Digital or the infamous Sun Direct.

Excise duty on big cars (the Audis, VW, BMW etc.) has been slashed by 5% to make it uniform at Rs. 15000 per unit. But the same has not been implemented for smaller cars (which form a major part of the Indian commuting style. You cannot see any common man driving a BMW or Prosche unless he is a driver of a CEO who is working in an MNC.

Gold prices have been increased by Rs. 200 per 10 gm...which means we men can cite that as a reason for not buying gold for our women folk.

Above all, the FM has done a great job by increasing the Income tax exemption limit by Rs. 10,000. I hear some of you ignorant people say WOW...Rs. 10,000 per year amounts to Rs. 800 per month. Hold On...:) below is the breakup of how much excess you would get if the exemption limit goes up by 10000. Here is the old structure with exemption:


With the new exemption (a whopping Rs. 10,000/=) here is the new tax payable per month:



So you save around Rs. 1030 PA. (TimesOfIndia published an article today which sid "The FM has ensured the tax payer gets Rs. 1030 excess at his disposal). What they have not mentioned is this amount should be divided by 12 to arrive at the monthly increase which is more important to common man than the yearly increase.

It is time for another test drive. Let's Jazz with the Honda Jazz. So Long.

Hyundai i10 for Dummies

Had the privilege of test driving a Hyundai i10 Sportz on last Friday. I might not have a 5000 hours of driving experience under my kitty, but I could drive around at 5th gear on ITPL road to test all the bumps and thuds this road is famous for. First of all, I would like to comment about the Hyundai customer care. These guys are as prompt as an Englishman :-). The moment I called up their customer care and fixed an appointment for a test drive the next day, I got 3 calls from them (one from Gurgaon office and 2 from the Advaith Hyundai showroom) to confirm the appointment. Kudos to them. I hope the after sales service too is as prompt (which I heard from a friend of mine, it is). I think Tata and Maruthi need to take a note of this. I have booked 3 calls with Maruthi for the Ritz Test drive, but somehow, I assume, they think I am too unimportant for them. Know what guys...I don't care. I don't need a 1.1 Ritz when I can think Kappa Buhhaaahahaha.

Then the D-Day. The sales person drove down to my office at exactly the scheduled time and we started off. 4 grown up men (3 oversized bloats :)), and me behind the wheel. Now for the real meat.

The interior has a cosy look and feel with the beige coloring frame and the beige seating. The seat is bucket styled, and good enough for a 5'5" (I am 5' 8" though and found it easy to drive).
Both the front and the rear provide a wide viewing experience (thanks to the A and C pillars being of lesser width as compared to Swift). The side view mirrors are really wide and with very less blind spot.

The gear shift, mounted on a console, was as smooth as butter (I am used to doing a hard 1st shift...thanks to my Alto gear box..). I noticed a Wagon R coming up behind me and I wanted to avoid this guy overtaking me since the road ahead was empty and if I followed this guy, I might not be able to test the i10 to it's fullest. But I was a bit apprehensive, since, with the A/C running and in 2nd gear, I was of the opinion, no small hatchback would be able to get the needed thrust. But this baby was awesome. There was absolutely no difference from driving with the A/C turned off. And I whizzed ahead of the Wagon R in less than 4 seconds :) (I should have checked the look on the Wagon R driver's face .

The gear shifts were smooth and I reached 5th gear in no time (at 90 KMPH now), then I noticed the bump. I am used to scraping my Alto's bottom on this one monster a couple of times and I always make it a point to make sure I am absolutely slow while driving over it. But I wanted to test i10's ground clearance (and what the hell, it isn't my car anyway), so I thought of taking on 3rd gear over it at 30 KMPH. And lo behold, did just that like a breeze. Very impressive. The steering column is both collapsable (for safety) and tiltable (convenience) and extremely sensitive handling. I was able to negotiate a sharp turn with just one hand on the wheel (I have this bad habit of driving with just one hand and the other on the gear). Made it through a couple of pot holes too with very less thuds.

The turning radius is similar to Santro (and a bit more than Alto) at 5 mtrs. so it is better to take that slight left and then turn to the right, if you are not used to it, lest you end up doing a double turn on a busy road. The brakes are very responsive (stopped the devil in its tracks at the next bump while doing an 80.

The boot space is decent and good enough for holding luggage of a family of four. Rear seats are 60-40 folding so you get that extra space in the rear (if you want to leave you mother in law with the luggages in the rear, this is the best option hehehehee). Sportz comes with a fully integrated music system, so the rear speakers are mounted on the door. So you get that folding panel in the rear for some soft toys (unlike Alto where I have the speaker mounted on the panel and have to be careful about the stuffs I keep there).

Headlamps are nice, elongated and wide. No complaints about their performance.

Some cons though:
Sportz is a bit pricy (around 30 K more than Magna), but comes with HMSL, Rear spoiler, rear defogger and a jazzy upholstry (for Red and black variants) with an integrated music system. But I think it is worth the experience you get out of it.

I am not too much into the NM and Torque and all that shit, but I can say this, on an incline with 4 decently built people, this car might just be able to make that hairpin bend which you would have scared to do in any other small car.

All in all: I would recommend this car (or magna or asta if you have some extra cash) to people who are considering their first car or are tired of their existing hatchback.
Driving, braking, pickup: 4.5/5
FE: 13 KMPL (city), 19 (highways, as told)
A.C.: Decent
Pricing: Affordable
On road (BLR): 467700 (Maybe you could bargain on the 1st year insurance waiver and Rs. 4K discount, the On road comes down to 4.49 L.) Came to know from a friend today, that they are giving some more accessories if you know how to bargain (which you would know if you are a true South Indian ;))

So long folks.

Be Safe...Play safe...always use the seat belt.

(TD'ing Vista tomorrow, shall post more on it)

i10 to TVS 50 in 30 seconds

Damn...I thought I could go for the i10 (EMI=Rs. 5000 pm). Now I have to live with my TVS 50 for the next 5 years when the next Government would change the tax slab. Saw the update on Budget 2009-2010. Looks like IT Exemption limit for Salaried class has gone up by Rs. 10000. Which means, my take home would go up by Rs. 80 pm. At this rate I might not have enough to even fuel my 50cc thunder. Long live this budget. Long live my TVS 50.

Need a break and a brake (for my devil) :-)

B-Day...It is the Budget Day

I am eagerly awaiting FM to announce the Budget 09-10. I am more eager to know what is in store for "me". Last budget was the best by far (thanks to Mr. PC), my take home went up by 42 grand a year :). The need is felt more now, thanks to the recession, the growing food/fuel/basic necessity prices. A few couple of thousand bucks hike would not hurt. Please Mr. Mukherjee, be a good man, help me get that i10 I have been aching for.

I am gonna watch NDTV Budget. Hope I would get more salary today. Have a major financial crunch coming up next month with a few LIC premiums, PPF payments, credit card payments, and above all, my love for Hyundai i10. KFC Folks.

How to release software and how to release software

After my tryst with Product Management over the past 28 months and my 9-6 work involving the PM concepts, I think I am now capable of penning my thoughts on the 2 ways software should be built and released. These are more of my personal views (and of some friends and colleagues too ;-)) and should not be considered as the final say. You are free to think/opine/contradict it and I would love to know more than 2 ways of doing the above task.

To begin with, I think writing a software is bullshit. Software is never written, it evolves from someone's idea. What goes in is not just the if, else or the {}. It is the end user's requirement, his pain points, and his suggestions. This is the only way we can look at software. From an end user's point of view. Hence the first and most important thing to do before building any product, is to get the customer's suggestion. After all, if you have a product and no customer you might as well throw it out of the window (needless to say, you might consider using the documents and the presentations created as emergency tissue papers). The following should be the motto of the day for any person working in the software industry:
"In Our Business The Customer Is The King". You should make each developer, product manager, solution manager, development manager, head clerk (???), admin, HR, every link in the chain, to say this 100 times before starting to code. This is one of the ways to get to know who is the boss. (I still wonder how some of the projects/products which came up without any customer focus made it to the market and survived for a week).

OK. So now back to what I started with. The 2 ways to release a software. The first methodology is outlined here.

"I give You Take":
(Should be read as I give you my idea, you take my idea). This is another way of saying "I give a damn to your ideas"

1. The LOB head comes up with an idea.
2. The idea is shared with design, architecture, and solution managers.
3. Solution Management tries to find internal stakeholders (read as internal customers) (we still do not have customers anywhere here)
4. Architecture comes up with the design document.
5. Technology is deliberated on.
6. Plans are communicated to development and timelines are created.
7. Development is still unaware of why it is doing what it is doing. (Point 2 never flows till here. It is not hidden in those design documents and MRDs which were created in point 3 and point 4. If you want you could understand from there)
8. Repeat steps 5-8
9. By now it is close to 8 months and 50% of development is still not aware of what they are doing. The rest know something because, they are in the process of updating their resume and need to show what they have done in this timespan since the project started.
10. When all the testing and validation and product standards and bug fixing and internal releases are completed, the product is ready to be released for a few select customers who showed interest in a similar idea.
11. When this is finally taken to the market, you find a host of products which are cheaper and easier to deploy with better service network.

Then we go back to step 1 and the process repeats. The reason why this would be a 95% failure is that there is no customer interaction at any point. Even if a customer is unfortunate enough to buy this product (which would be costly as hell because of the huge effort spent so far), the UI, interaction, and flow would not be to his taste. So now the development is loaded with the task of customized development for this customer. (The remaining 5% would be for the internal customers who do not have an option but use it as a pressure from the upper management)

The major pit-fall here is that every single person in the food chain is unsure of the market demands. There is just no customer in the whole thread, from whom you could get their views.

The other route (and my most fav one) is:

"You give I take"

Should be read as "You give me the requirements, I take your requirements"

For this I would say the first point of contact is the field. Get the field sales people to check with their buddy-buddy customers about what they have, what they would like to have in what they have, and what they would not like to have in what they have. This is more of a bottom-up approach and would flow as below:

1. Field approaches customer with what they want.
2. Customer gives his requirements.
3. Field talks to Solution Management
4. Solution Management prepares MRD and shares with Field
5. Field ensures if things are understood (and if required, check and cross check with customer)
6. If things are fine, Field requests for commitment from SM.
7. SM checks with management and provides a breakdown result structure (more of SCRUM except that at the end of each Sprint, the actual audience would be the Field and Customer and not peer developers)
8. Signoff from Field and customer
9. Communication of MRD/PRD from SM to Architecture.
10. Architecture prepares blue print. Discuss with Field (and if required the customer). Make sure if this is what the BOSS wants.
11. Communication to Development and Project Management.
12. PM plans for short sprints and development executes.
13. End of each sprint, check with customer if the requirements are being implemented right.
14. Close the project ahead of schedule.

The good thing in this approach is, even if you slip a month or so past the deadline, it is not a big deal since you have got the customer and field's confidence in your work. They would be ready to wait for your result.

The only con here is, it requires 3 steps more to release (the first needed just 11) and requires to disturb the customer time and again (with your questions and suggestions and ideas). But what the hell, I think customers like to talk to development about the proposal. At the end of the day, who would like to spend money on a piece of code which they never wanted.

This is a longer route, but one which is guaranteed to get you that 5 * from the customer. Afterall 5* is always better than a dissatisfied customer. Think about it.

My most complex creation

I woke up a bit late. It was a Monday morning. I had worked all night on Sunday, trying to figure out what was missing. What...what...what is it that is not in place? All the pieces fit together perfectly in the puzzle. Except one. There was a small gap, but it was the most important part, since it fell right in the center. I did not care to get out of the bed. I lay there and looked hard at the missing place in the puzzle; I had stuck the jigsaw to the roof, so that I could look at it when I lay down. Enough of this. I was tired and needed a stroll. I got out of the bed, took my walking stick and climbed down. From where I stood, I could see what I had made, my painting. The grass looked beautiful, lush green with mist settled on the tip, the serene blue pond in the center, the trees surrounding it, which had the first set of flowers just beginning to bloom, all the animals in circle around the lake and quenching their thirst, without bothering to disturb one another. I took a deep breath. This is what life is about, the satisfaction of seeing your work look so beautiful, so comforting. Still the nagging in my head did not stop. What is it that I need to do, to make this beautiful paint exquisite? I sat on a rock near the pond wondering, what to place in the puzzle to complete the painting. At that moment, my cane fell down near the foot of the rock. I stooped down to pick it up and it struck then. I looked at myself in the water and found out what was missing. Myself. All that the painting needed was an intelligent organism, a wise creature which could think and act. Something with the sixth sense, something which is capable of making wise decisions. I sketched the painting with the new creature, two legs, two hands, a face and a body, sitting on the rock. I stood away from the painting to inspect my work. It looked splendid and fit perfectly in the picture. I noticed this creature needed 2 final things; A name, and a companion. Name to separate it from the other living and non-living beings, and a companion to make sure it does not feel lonely. So I thought I shall name it source: Man and named the companion Woman (same source ;)) Now it was complete. Just like I had given the other "animals" the ability to multiply, I gave man too the power so that Man would not be the last one on earth, but many generations. I marveled at my creation, that I had made the near perfect invention.

I admit, I made one mistake. I gave a feeling called desire in man (more desire in woman). Man started growing his family, just like I wanted him to, Man gained knowledge and power and money, just like I wanted him to. Everything was fine for a few years. Then desire came in man to have one community, have a leader, give the leader more power. Desire led to anger and envy. Then man started fighting with man to become leader. Woman fought with woman for more desire and envy. The fight between 2 men grew into a fight between 2 communities. I saw my creations killing one another, Oh! my children lay in a pool of blood and it was all my fault. I thought I will give a few more million years so that they would live happily. However, I was wrong. Man can never live happily with another man. As long as 2 men are together, there will always be hatred, jealousy, pain and suffering.

I thought, enough is enough, I will put an end to this misery, I will use Man's own creation against him. I waved my cane and there was a lightning, a flash, a cloud and everything went silent. Absolute silent darkness everywhere. When the dust settled down, I stroll once again to inspect the end. The grass is all dried up and burnt, the trees stand naked, thin leafless branches jutting out, the pond is dried up and has carcass of animals and man lying there, there is a stench everywhere. To put an end to man's sufferings, I had destroyed all my creations.

I knew I had miscalculated, I knew I had a bigger task at hand to cleanup this mess, I knew I had one more weekend to spend trying to create the perfect creation.

Why Not To MockUp

One of the keywords to be eliminated from a Project Manager's dictionary is "Mockup". Never tell the development team that the project they are working on would be a demo/mockup. Better, do not take up the word *Mockup* anywhere (in SRS, Specs, SDD, team meetings, the likes). The mere mention of this term kills the morale of the team and sends everyone back to the stone-ages. I had this experience after seeing my team's boost dropping exponentially just because the sprint we were working on, got termed as a demo sprint.

I do not blame the developers for this. It is natural tendency of any human being to concentrate on the more important topics which would be beneficial to him/her in the long run and neglect the not so important parts out of their day to day activities. Rather, it is the duty of the Project/Program Management to keep the morale of the team on a positive note. The moment this "Go-Get-It" spirit drops down, there is no way (and not even with a Viagra) that it can be brought up.

As like everyone, I feel bad to see my efforts are wasted at the end of the sprint. Need a day of R&R to rejuvenate.

SlumDog makes it big. But what's in it for me?

I was reading the newspaper today morning (the notorious Times Of India), and was pained to see 4 pages on SlumDog making it big in the Oscars. When I turned to the 5th page, I saw an article on 2 kids in Bangalore drowning in a drainage. I fail to understand which of these news is more important to the Indian audience. We have terrorism in various parts of India, people dying due to hunger, poverty, disease and all that the media can think of at this time is to publish 4 pages of not so useful information in the front page.

Personally, I do not have any grudge against SM making it to the Oscars. As an Indian, I am proud of this achievement, and I think Rehman deserved it. But then, Rahman deserved this for Roja, Swades, Lagaan etc. which were much better than the one he is receiving now. When I was browsing Rediff.com, I saw this video of Anil Kapoor (Duh???) talking about how it was like to stand on the stage and receive an award, how it is a great day for India...blah blah blah. Coming from Anil Kapoor it makes sense. He has not seen a single box office success throughout his life, so making it to the OSCAR's would surely boost his image. But I think overhyping this just degrades us further in front of the global community. It sends a signal that India is a 3rd world country and it is finally making it big. I feel India has more potential and it is not necessary that we be recognised for our efforts through a foreign award. When all of this was happening, the media did not talk about Smile Pinki or the little girl who, when I last heard, was waiting for her passport and visa to travel to the awards ceremony. I think, the international audience likes to see the slums and poverty of India. Any movie which talks about this makes it big. There was this novel called "Shantharam" by Gregory David Roberts which was about the life of a escaped NZ convict in Dharavi. The book became a bestseller. Slum Dog talks about how a slum kid makes it big in the "Who wants to be a millionaire?". But there is more to India than just slums. We have a rich culture and heritage (infact more than any other country), we have friendly and loving people, we have a joint family system still in place which is not there anywhere else. We need these kinds of movies which showcase our talents than our miseries.

Now the various State Governments would confer awards for casts haling from their state. Lakhs and Crores of money would be paid to the protagonist and his kins, row-houses and farm-houses would be "donated" to them. And all of this from the innocent tax payers' money. We pay taxes for better roads, infrastructure, water, food, and basic necessities. But the BABUS think that feeding the millionaires is more important.

I would not entirely blame the media or the press for this kind of a behavior. We, the people, should understand what is of importance to us now, we need to shed off the veil of "We are like this only" until then, it is just one man's cribbing against the system.

JAI HO.

Yet another useless post

I have this feeling to write about the numeric system since a long time, but somehow in all the chaos around me (deliveries, deadlines, dependencies), never found the time or the urge to pen it down (or key it down). I woke up early today morning (around 6:00 AM types), and had a lot of time for office. So, I thought, why not now?

We have always known (and come to acknowledge it as a fact) that the numeric system starts at 0 (I am talking about a real life scenario wherein 0 is the least and 100 is considered to be complete). Infact, it is so much embedded within our system that we have stopped (or never started) questioning it. But is this really true? Why is 0 considered to be the start of all numbers and 100% completion means that the task is completed? Is it because cent means 100? If so, why was cent fixed to be 100 and not 10 or 1000? These are really confusing questions to answer. When we say a task is nearing 100%, we immediately think that it is nearing completion and all the sub-tasks within this task are fulfilled. How about thinking it this way? When we say a task is nearing 100% completion, it could also be thought as the "pending" sub-tasks are nearing 0. Which means, 0 could now be taken to be the completion value. Then the notation 100 loses it's significance. The same is with a graph of the amount of knowledge a person gathers over life. It is said, this graph curve is sharp in the initial stages (like childhood, adolescence) and starts tending to be come horizontal in the later stages. It is attributed to the reason that the grasping power of a person tends to go down with age. Also, the person starts implementing the knowledge he has gained so far in real life situations rather than learning something new.




Then could this also be considered here as below. When we plot this graph with the age on the X Axis and the brain capacity on the Y axis, the graph shows a different picture eventhough the final goal is the same.


We, as human beings, lack the will to question the facts. We are "taught" at school that 0 is the least, and the more we increment, the better. If only we could reverse this order, we would stop being human beings and become GOD.

Aham Brahmasvi

Top 10 places to work in India

1. State Bank Of India
2. Vijaya Bank (Bangalore)
3. Union Bank Of India
4. BSNL Customer Care Center
5. RTO
6. Tata Indicom BroadBand (Sales)
7. Reliance BroadBand (sales)
8. Hathway Broadband (sales)
9. Passport Office
10.Ration office (Ration = Place where you get subsidised rice, pulses, cereals, etc.)

I really envy anybody working in either of these places. You should really be lucky to work here, because, not all places pay you for not doing your work. Also, you need to be mentally and physically strong to do the same routine for 25 years (i.e. do nothing). If ever I am born again as a human in my next life, I pray to God, "Do not make me so incapable so as to join Google or Microsoft, place me in any one of above 9 organisations".

The Black Sheep In The Family

Being a South Indian is not easy. In SI, if you have not travelled and stayed abroad for more than a year, you are not a true software engineer at all. Infact, you are not even a human being. The general statement is "How long have you been in this business? You mean, in these 4 years as a software engineer, you have not travelled to the US/UK/Japan (ofcourse you might have travelled for 2 weeks but that is not considered).

TRAVEL = 1 YEAR STAY AND EARN IN DOLLARS. In that way, wherever you have been, the currency is still the same. You earn in dollars in US, UK, Germany, Azarbhaijan, Zion etc.

And most the questions come from relatives (your parents cannot ask you cos they are fully aware of the issue at hand). But the U(ncle)s and the A(unty)s have more or less hard coded this question in an infinite While loop. And there are 2 companies that they are aware of: Infosys and Wipro. So if you are working in one of those small companies like Google, Yahoo or Adobe, then, forget it. You are a good for nothing chap. Cos, you did not make it to I/W. It does not matter if you are doing documentation or admin or desk cleaning, you are still working there man. Come on. 10 in every 50 South Indian family members works in either Infosys, Wipro or Cognizant.

When my relatives look at me, they murmur behind my back: "Every family has a black sheep". Being a South Indian is not all that easy.

The Crow, The Fox, The Lady and the Donut

We are aware of the story of a crow which stole a salted donut (vada) from a poor lady (who was preparing the same on the roadside). The fox stole from the crow by pretending to be a fan of the crow's voice. When the crow opened up it's mouth to show it's singing skills, the donut dropped due to gravitational force (Damn Newton) and the fox ran away with the piece.

For a long time, people have concentrated on this story and did not talk about what happened next? That's because what followed was a chain of chemical reactions (welllll...not exactly), some law suits, a few angry (a.k.a juicy words) and an All's Well That Ends Well. As you already know, I have a PhD. in human psychology and, I thought, this is the right time to make the world up-to-date about what really happened later.

The lady initiated a law suit against Jon Doe (since she did not know whom to initiate the law suit against). The crow initiated a law suit on Fox since it knew the culprit. To support it's case, it bribed a few more crows and brought them to testify against the fox. The fox denied the charges laid on it, and asked for substantiating proofs. Meanwhile, the lady was following this crow vs fox lawsuit and she thought "Better to side a known devil than an unknown friend". So she stood by the fox. What the crow did not know when it stole the donut was that, the lady was an ex lawyer who, in troubled times, had taken to making donuts. The Lady represented the fox and pleaded her client not guilty. The crow salted the jury (meaning bribing the jury) and tried to tilt the case in it's favor. But the judge favored the fox, since the judge and the lawyer had an affair before the lady became an ex lawyer. The crow lost the case, and a lot of money (remember it had paid it's friends, the jury, the plaintiff, the bus driver, the postmaster etc.). The fox thanked the lady and the judge and every one lived happily ever after.

"Creative comments are welcome"