Joel on software, a blog on software management is available in Tamil. Actually it is the only Indian language that JoS is translated to. I am proud and at the same time surprised. I guess we Tamil guys are pretty known for software knowledge. You can read the blog in Tamil here.
Monthly Archives: January 2004
CMS installed
I have installed Mambo server and made some changes to the default settings. I should admit that I like the way Mambo is designed. It is highly flexible, though there are still some room for improvement. But there is enough of documentation found in the net that it is easy to find your way around.
Get a Job Every Time!
Through a blog entry I got this article about writing a good resume. A good read.
First crack of JSP
I plunged into JSP code today and with the guidance of another team member, I was able to implement a modification. Compared to whatever I have done before in Oracle, VB, Vantive and host of other languages, this was a small one. However the pleasure of cracking something new and seeing the result was great.
My play with CMS
I have been playing with an open source content management system – Mambo server. So far I like its flexibility and features. Only concern has been speed – I don’t know if Mambo is slow or my web server or my network. Anyway the power of Mambo is appealing. Will test some more and then roll the balls.
A Proud Republic
Little less than half a century ago, at this day, we became a republic. In the beginning, we struggled with huge population, partition, poverty and so many other issues. Corruption has been and still a major issue. And due to situational factors, India choose a socialist path. However for the past couple of years, a strategic move has been happening in the Indian economical system – from Nehru’s socialist to fruit-bearing capitalist system. With economical boom, there is talk of development in every area of the country. Added to it, today, prime men of the country – prime-minister and president – are visionaries. (Does it has to do something with their bachelorhood?) It has never happened before. Hope people and politicians will capitalize this opportunity and take the country to a developed country status by 2020 as laid out by Abdul Kalam, our president.
Slow progress
.Net learning is pretty slow, due to overload at work. However I have finished the UI redesign for FOW and XML reading (for reading configuration file). Currently I am using windows.forms, which is Windows OS specific. Later when #WT is ready, I will use it to port to Linux under which .Net is implemented as mono. This way, FOW will continue to work under both Windows and Linux.
Hopefully this weekend, I will be able to delve into .Net.
The bull returns
After my unpleasant return to India, first it was, ‘Simply sitting and monthly getting’ and then ‘Cleaning up other’s shit’ as a troubleshooter. The project manager was pretty impressed with my performance that he wants me to handle two of the most troublesome applications in the project. I have been already handling a small Vantive application and for the past 10 days I have been having a knowledge transfer of a JAVA/JSP application. If the plan goes well, I will be billable by the end of the month.
In the mean time, my previous VP (Vice president) called me couple of times to invite me to work under him. At the same time my current project manager says, he needs me to handle these two applications. It feels good to be in demand after being kicked between the poles. I have decided to maintain the status quo.
.Net is promising
For the past few weeks I have been reading through C# and .Net. .Net is an evolved platform over Java concepts. The platform and C# seems interesting and challenging. An interesting feature is that .Net (along with C#) is already ported into Linux, though the GUI library (windows forms) is not supported under Linux. But there are promising developments coming along. Another interesting feature is that .Net includes xml/xsl processing within the platform. This makes it a suitable choice for updating FOW. Only downside from the user’s perspective is that they will have to download the .Net runtime. But as Microsoft is pushing the technology, in few years time the platform will be on most of the PCs. From development perspective, I will have to rewrite FOW from scratch.
My plan is that I should be able to release a windows version of FOW in around 3 months and in few more months it should work in Linux as well.
Picture man
At office I am known as a picture man. Because I prefer to draw pictures to explain/understand concepts. Seeing its effectiveness, one another member also picked up the ‘picture drawing’ habit. Instead of writing pages of explanations, I find it effective to convey the meaning via pictures. Of course, I do have text, but then a picture speaks better. Isn’t it? It comes handy as well, because time and again we have to communicate with people sitting thousands of miles away (to those Americans).
I got into this habit with courtesy of a Flemish colleague I had. That picture girl induced me to be a picture man!