Programmers Life

What is the life of a programmer?

Read Microserfs . It is a short story which cronicles the life of programers in a young Microsoft.

It was written in 1994. More than a decade has passed and the power of microprocessors has increased 64 times , but the programmers life , well, remains a programmers life.

Microserfs tracks seven days @ Microsoft. Here is my take on seven days spent in a programers life.

[ This is a fictional account. Most of the programmers actually accomplish a lot, especially when they are in a zone ]

Monday: National Holiday :
> Manager's view It is our duty to work on national holidays, just look at the dedication displayed by rest of the team
> Programmer'ss view
Everybody has gone {fill: party , date , home } .

Empty rooms are depressing , nothing on TV , lets surf net in the office.

for (day = Tuesday; day != Friday ; day = next day) {

> Manager's view

Is everybody working? Always.

> Programmer's view
work : do {
Check Email.

Coffee.

See the tasks scheduled.

Check Slashdot/digg/joel.reddit.

Check Email. Delete Spam.

Look at the code.

Lunch.

Check Email.

Read about Startups.

Tinker with code.

Check favourite blogs.

Coffee.

if (feelling dead) break;
} while(1);
if (possible) eat and sleep;

goto work;
}
Saturday: Personnel work day.
> Manager's view
Why doesn't he pick up the phone?
> Programmer's Life
Can't even switch ON the phone. Gotta pick laundry, goto bank and rest .........????
Sunday:
> Manager's view
Tommorow is Monday. Again. Maybe we will accomplish something.
>Programmer's view
Tomorrow is Monday. Again. Lets Blog , maybe can get something written.

Now go. Work.

New Look

I was getting bored by that old blue look and thought about giving my blog a make over.
I also added support for Google Analytics which tracks website usage.
Here are some of the statistics:

Internet Explorer 6.0 - Windows XP		64.29%
Internet Explorer 5.01 - Windows 98		21.43%
Firefox 1.5.0.5 - Windows XP		7.14%
Internet Explorer 6.0 - Windows 98		7.14%

The data is from 14 people who read my blog last week [ I really didn't think more than couple of my friends read my blog..... Thank you all ]

I am extremely surprised that there is no LINUX.

Please let me know about the new look ( built using beta.blogger.com ) in the comments section.

PS. Please note that the data collected by google analytics is anonymous. I dont know who you are. You need not worry...............

The Song of Creation

While reading "The Argumentative Indian" By Amartya Sen , I came across an interesting verse

Who really knows?Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is thiscreation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps itdid not the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only heknows or perhaps he does not know

[ The hindi translation of this was also used as the lyrics in the casting song of  "Bharat Ek Khoj" ].

This is parts of a hymn "The Song Of Creation" in Rig Veda.

Look at the premise: There was nothing before the existance of universe. God came into existance with the existance of universe. So does God know how universe was formed , or perhaps he does not know.

So simple yet so profound. It questions everything.

What you believe in , Why you believe in  , Should you believe in ?

What is right? What is wrong?

What is the right choice?

Is there any right choice.

Perhaps we can decide; Perhaps we cannot.

PS. There is a dialogue in Matrix "The life is the sum total of choices we make"

The Snatch

Day 26 June 2006

9:00 PM

The air rushing through my hair was almost soothing. I had a hard day in office and was walking home. It was completely dark and road was almost deserted.

The motorcycle stopped in from of me. Two people got down(lets call then "P" and "Q".

 "Sir, can you tell me the address of HCL Technologies"

"Sure"

I turned and pointed my hand in the right direction.

"It is just around the corner"

The hand lock on my neck felt unusually painful. "Q" had got behind me and grabbed me.

"P" checked my pockets and took out my mobile and wallet.

They ran to their bike and zoomed into the darkness.

9:10 PM

Dialed 100.

"Hello Police Control Room"

Explained.

"We will just send a patrol van"

"Thanks"

9:45

Dialed 100.

"Hello Police Control Room"

"The van has not come"

"Goto police station and file a complaint"

10:15

Sec-58 Police Station:

"Write it in Hindi"

"Ok"

...........

"Will they be caught?"

"Maybe"

"You can have the copy of the complaint"

"Thanks"

PS. My mobile phone was a Nokia 6610 (black). If any one knows anything about it . Please tell. He/She will be suitably rewarded.

PPS: In case you are wondering . I took a hit of around 9000 INR (including cost of mobile phone) and i think the snatch took less than a minute.

Reading and Me

Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent nor praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me, and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium-smoker to his pipe. I would sooner read the catalogue of the Army and Navy Store or Bradshaw’s Guide than nothing at all, and indeed I have spent many delightful hours over both these works. . . . Of course to read in this way is as reprehensible as doping, and I never cease to wonder at the impertinence of great readers who, because they are such, look down on the illiterate. . . . like the dope-fiend who cannot move from place to place without taking with him a plentiful supply of his deadly balm, I never venture far without a sufficiency of reading matter.

A quote by William Somerset Maugham and something that very nearly describes me

Blogging

Fannaa

Fannaa : Some body told me that this means ultimate sacrifice. I watched "Fannaa" the movie aur mein fannaa ho gaya.
The second half of the movie is loosely based on a novel "The Eye of the Needle" by Ken Follet.
[ The fact that Follet's website claims that more than ten million copies have sold might just tell you how good the novel is ]
The fact that there was no story to begin with and that I knew the story made it one of the worst movies this year. It was a total drain on my resources (money , time and the calories spent going to the theatre).
People might say that Aamir and Kajol were good,but this fact should be also taken into consideration that there were no other actors worth the name in the movie to compare them with.
Only in the last scene when he points the gun to Kajol does Aamir matches the intensity of Henry Faber [ aka the needle ] , the protagonist the of the novel.

The trek to "Bhavishya Badri"

I am an avid trekker.
(Though the lack of time has made only once a year phenomenon.)

A couple of week ago (January 28th to be precise) Me and four of my friends trekked to "Bhavishya Badri" (3641 m)

A digression: "The mythology of Bhavishya Badri"
As the name suggests it is the future abode of "Lord Badri" , which as the most Indians would know is worshipped in "Badrinath". The mythology states that the current route to "Badrinath" will turn inaccessible and then "Lord Badri" would be worshipped here. Hence the name "Bhavishya Badri" or Future "Badri".

Now back to the trek:
I will skip the details of the route (They can be found here), but we (there were five of us in all) started the trek at around 10 AM in the morning few kilometers from a place called Saldhar.

All climbs begin with energy and enthu. All climbs end with no energy , but only enthu.
The is a strenuous trek and even though we only averaged 26 years in age , we had a real tough time after just 15 minutes. The "Saldhar" is a typical mountain village with very friendly people and twenty minutes later we were given water by a friendly lady and a tip : The normal route to the top has ice sheets and is unusable; use the long and pucca route.

We messed the routes big time :) though of course we didn't knew it that time.
Three of us (including me) went on the wrong route and realized that we had to climb a mountain.

This split caused us a delay of about an hour and was first in the series of tragedies that were to unfold.

The route we were now following was a gully carved by flowing water from top of the mountain. The soil was very soft and we were continuously struggling to locate good footholds. Falling and slipping became regular and I was hoping against hope that I do not tear my clothes.

On a particularly tricky section, our food packet fell below. The salvage operation that followed yielded a few badams and a box of haldirams sweets.

After around an hour we joined the main route. Here we were met by a local who was transporting sand for a construction. We had worked hard to reach here and we felt the need to get a reward. Reward: A nice photo with the deep valley behind us. We requested the local. He agreed. I put down the box of sweets near the edge of the route.
We got the photo clicked. We moved forward.

We reached another village "Subhai". We were painfully aware that we had forgotten the box of sweets in our enthusiasm to record our journey.
The next this was to buy food/water on our way up. Imagine to our surprise, no food/water is available in the village (To be more accurate, the shop did not had biscuit packets, bottled water).No choice but to move ahead.

The temple was still "some distance away". Actually this village also has a temple, but the "true" temple is on top of the mountain [this info. is from the locals, and I really don't know the truth; anyway we were more interested in the trek, so we ignored this village temple]

From here onwards the going became very interesting.
If you can't believe that every muscle in your body can be painful, you have to go on this trek.
The trek is an almost 70 degree incline for about a kilometer. It sucks up energy at a rate that thought did not even existed. Lack of water only made the matter more excruciating.

We were now walking on ice sheets and our progress slowed down considerably.
The route now had a pine forest alongside. I cannot express in words how trekking in this forest felt. The silence was broken only by our walk.

It is very serene and very beautiful. You can watch the whole valley below, joshimath and Auil ski slope included.

We spent fifteen minutes in the temple and started on our way down (we would probably have enjoyed it more but we faced two constraints: A) Time B) No food since morning).

General trekking trip: Coming down can some time be tougher than going up especially on an incline > 45 degrees.

I was feeling unwell and slowed the group.

We finally reached our jeep @ 4:00 PM and hit Auli some time later. Starving, we pounced on food (the shopkeeper was as surprised as he was happy, we had a bill of about 300/- in fifteen minutes)

PS. I got away with my jacket safe and sound.