Terabytes of energy MINUS bytes of laziness = 0 = Premkumar Anand

The Irish Days - DAY-9

2009-12-14T14:20:00.001-08:00

Date: 16-Jun-08
Place: The Derby House Hotel

1. Got used to the routine and to the town. The town is now old for me.
2. Woke up early and went to the office as usual.
3. Very usual day perhaps
4. People here eat a faster lunch... not more than 10 minutes... especially CO... pretty nice guy as my manager said. I was coding with 100% attention. All of a sudden CO said from my back "Beautiful...". He was behind me looking at the code. Should keep up his words.
5. Lunch Expense: 2.75EURO
6. Ajmal said that there are no rooms.
7. Some party was hosted at the Red Onion. Ahmed inadvertently gave me meat, and unfortunately I had to omit it. He was disappointed. He felt tensed and left my dinner as complementary. I must tally this emotional outburst tomorrow anyways.
8. Lord Edward B&B is full for the next 2 months. No way I can get room there. Ajmal sharing room is the only way. Should look for some safety locker.
9. Thinking of calling Vasanth (the Tamil fellow I met in streets of the town). That must be the last choice.
10. Worried that the assignment may extend. Should either finish before that or should take the work back to offshore. Second one being my choice.

Total Expense: 2.75EURO

The Irish Days - DAY-8

2009-12-09T14:49:00.001-08:00

Day-8: 15-Jun-2008
Place: The Derby House Hotel

1. Weekends are loooooong. Somebody must help me get out of this boredom.
2. Went to Dublin city. Not such a great city. No tall buildings nor clean roads as shown in Indian cinemas.
3. It's a very normal city with an Irish cultural flavour. Many monuments, castles, etc... are there. Explored all these by city tour Hop-on Hop-off buses. Expense: 15EURO
4. Starved in the noon and drunk just one apple juice. 2.70EURO
5. Its an overdose of tourist attraction and it pushed to a great vacuum of boredom already pushed by my loneliness.
6. Stepped into the famous Henry Street and got to see many Indian faces. They are reluctant even to smile back.
7. Met an Indian in the Hop-on-hop-off bus. He said that his parents are Indians/Keralites. He surprised about India's improvement when he went there last year.
8. Out of appetite, I bought some salad etc... for 5.91EURO
9. Loads of movies.. no other go.. should think of other alternatives.. preparing for GATE or for any whitepapers.
10. Used a long journey from Dublin 'back' to Kildare: 10.30EURO. Lot of expenses. A typical weekend. But should make sure we are not put under pressure in the last days.
11. God damn.. get out of this place ASAP.

Total Expense: 39.91EURO

The Irish Days - DAY-7

2009-12-08T14:45:00.000-08:00

Day-7: 14-Jun-2008
Place: The Derby House Hotel

1. Another boring day. It's weekend and people around are enjoying crazily. More liqour, more joy, more expenses.
2. I tried to go Dublin but couldn't collect much energy and confidence. I dressed well & walked upto Kildare village to check my account balance :)
3. Came back and spent almost 2 hours reading a novel which is quite boring
4. Started back with an energy to the office after watching a movie "The Best Game Ever Played" about golf in which a little boy wins championship against all odds.
5. But in vain, I found I.T. department to be closed in weekends. Crazy. If it were India, office would have been crowded.
6. "Red Onion" seems to be open only in the evening
7. Came back to the room. Slept as usual. Went to Red Onion after that.
8. Aasin said that Ajmal is ready to show his room. I ate Naan with Kurma stuffs. I spent 24.90EURO there; a big amount I thought I should not spend again.
9. Brought some fruit and water. 2.75EURO.
10. Went to Ajmal's room. Quite messy as a typical bachelor's room. Although I'm okay with it, I'm not ready to share his room as I highly doubted his profile. Security is more important than money.
11. I said if nothing comes around, I'll share the room.
12. I don't know whether these Pakistani's are reliable, except for Ahmed. I see them all in Paddy Power gambling always.
13. Learnt that Ajmal is a horse-rider but not having license to ride in races as a jockey. He said he is getting as low as 365EURO/week and if he becomes race jockey he'll get more. Everybody have their own passions cracking their neck.
14. Weekends are lonely here. I feel it very very boring. Thinking of going to Dublin tomorrow. Lets see how it works out.
15. I must push these days sooner and should return back to India ASAP.

Total Expense: 27.65EURO

The Irish Days - DAY-6

2009-12-04T16:30:00.000-08:00

Day-6: (13-Jun-08)
Place: Derby House Hotel

1. Quite a boring drowsy Friiday (my first weekend!). I find some problem with my communication contrary to my belief.
2. Met with business team and couldn't understand most of the things out of their mouth. Fed up!!
3. Still looking for a sharing. Aasin from Red Onion is very very helpful. A Pakistani is helping an Indian.
4. Lunch. Again the same. Expense: 2.75EURO
5. Work has started boring and life here too & don't know exactly why. Am I moody?
6. Aasin helped me meet Ajmal at Paddy Power. Interesting to see a guy who makes a living by gambling.
7. He's not interested to share his room with me, as the room is very small. Said somebody will vacate room and I'll be informed. 80EURO per week is a great deal.
8. Rangesh (from previous project) is disturbing me a lot.
9. Nothing much interesting. My legs are paining like hell. May be because of the long walk yesterday.
10. Dinner: 3.50 EURO. A chenna rice again. How long can I live with the chenna rice, the only available herbivores stuff.

The Irish Days - DAY-5

2009-12-03T14:44:00.001-08:00

Day-5: 12-Jun-2008
Place: The Derby House Hotel

1. This day has built some confidence in me to make a living here. Even thought of looking for a permanent job, but not desparate.
2. Day started late. Reached office by 9:20
3. Got some real work to do. Requirements for Phase-1 gathering started
4. CO worried about my position to walk from Hotel to office.
5. KB getting close to me. Seems to be a nice guy.
6. Got rice in lunch again (Expense: 3.80EURO)
7. Busy busy noon. Involved in coding.
8. By evening had a good chat with KB about sharings in the town.
9. Bought some bread and water from Eurospar (expense: 2.51EURO)
10. Had a long long walk across the breadth of the town upto Ruenberg Manor. Town is really so tidy. Ruenberg is very very excellent living place. Love to live here for some years. Also visited a place Roamville which is toooo rich. Cool place.
11. Also had a look at the interiors of the town. Need to look for some good place here.
12. Weather was very cool today. Must have been below 7 degrees.
13. During the evening walk, an old man said an affable "Hello" to me, unlike in India where people never believe strangers, especially the unmarrieds. Got to learn from these people.
14. Still need to build the confidence for interacting with these people as themselves.

Total Expense: 5.56 EURO.

The Irish Days - DAY-4

2009-12-02T14:58:00.000-08:00

Date: 11-June-2008
Place: Room #207, The Derby House Hotel

1. Pretty interesting day
2. Started off taking bath in the tub. Thats too funny.
3. First day to office 'by walk'
4. Straight into work. Easy project !
5. More technical details.. Busy working.
6. It has started raining today. KB said "It is the real Irish climate"
7. CO seems to be so royal that he disliked my shift to The Derby House Hotel
8. Pocket full of coins. How do these people manage.
9. Lunch had some rice too ! But 0% spice ;) Expense: 2.80EURO
10. Way back to the room. Met Vasanth, a civil engineer, with his wife (a gud homely looking programmer) looking for a house here in town. Learnt that sharing rooms are available here for some 60EURO/week. Good to here a Tamil voice "Naan Coimbatore-dhaanga (I'm from Coimbatore)"
11. He gave his contact number. Need to use it in a right time.
12. Ate some Chenna rice (Expense: 3.50EURO) in Ahmed's hotel
13. Asked him about any shared rooms. Said some Pakistanis living in upstairs of Eurostar. One of the person's name is Ajmal. Should be cautious. May not be in sync with us.
14. Bought some grocery 5.17EURO.
15. Good that people must pay for 22p for plastic carry bags as a tax. This must be a trend in India to reduce plastic cover usage.
16. Total Expense: 11.69EURO. Exceeded the limit. Let's tally tomorrow.
17. Feeling sleeeeepy today. Good night!

The Irish Days - DAY-3

2009-11-30T14:23:00.000-08:00

1. The town is so silent. Time is 07:16 PM !
2. Had a nice day in the office. Learnt that the project would be pretty easy :)
3. Went to office in a taxi. The taxi driver spoke about many interesting things.
4. KB, the 10-yr-exp-developer, is curious about knowing me. He spoke very frankly about India, and China that they are booming nations threatening the other nations' growth. He also said that Ireland started to grow just before 20 years.
5. Still other cubicle mates are not coping up with me.
6. Went to The CattleView Farm B&B. Nobody there. The taxi driver accompanied well. He has been a taxi driver for the past 6 months. Before that he was a landscaper. Eventhough it is physically tough he enjoyed it. He said "You know it's pretty good when I make something out of a place that is nothing". Good thought.
7. He also said that he does not like cricket. Almost everybody here speak with me about cricket, economy, and climate of India.
8. The driver billed 90EURO. Forgot to get a bill again.
9. Thank God I found The Derby House Hotel so close walkable from the LM office. Fullstop for taxis.
10. But still to save some money I need to look for some other hotels/guest houses. Paid 780EURO for 13 nights; 60 per night.
11. I'm scared that I may not be returned the amount I paid if I check out earlier. When enquired, the receptionist said they'll return the amount.
12. Still doubting what to tell to the HR people.
13. Thank God again that I found an Indian hotel here in town. Ate mushroom rice with a coke as compliment for just 3.95EURO.
14. A Pakistani, Ahmed, is running the Indian restaurant. Great thing.. our brothers are fighting there back.
15. Finally, got a toothpaste for 2.95EURO. Pretty costly if converted to INR. I'm getting ready to save at least 1000EURO
16. I think I'm now left up with just around 2989EURO. Need to look for some other living place soon. Mail HR asking how much is the per diem including accomodation.
17. Meanwhile, got into the server room where PLOM application runs. Great to be into the den of a little lion!! Pretty interesting experience.
18. Need to brush up official things.
19. I somehow felt guilty hearing that here is a 31% increase in unemployment in Ireland, the highest recorded in the past 9 years. We may be one of the reasons for that. Who knows, the skilled pros may not be available here.
20. Polls are up in Ireland. One party says No for Ireland to be part of EU and the other Yes. Need to learn more about this thing.
21. Taxi driver said that housing is the job hub for about 40% of the people here.
22. The driver asked about the population in India. I said 1100 million. He laughed and said, its just 4 million here !
23. The driver also said that I speak better English like an English.
24. He can't speak mcuh Irish; learnt and forgot in school ! Still people in Western Ireland speak Irish "only". Very traditional.
25. Had some "vegetable" lunch in the canteen. Expense: 2.90EURO!

The Irish Days - DAY-2

2009-11-29T14:53:00.001-08:00

Date: 9-June-2008
Place: Guest room in The Osprey Hotel, Naas

1. Had a tough time taking bath in a bath tub.
2. Hired a txi to travel to the office (Expense: 33.30 EURO)
3. Visited LM (Client office name suppressed) by 08:00 AM. CO (Client name suppressed) seemed to turn by 09:00 AM. And disappointingly I'm having appointment only by 03:00 PM.
4. Phoned HR. Seems that they have given the card for UK and not for Ireland.
5. I have strated to count my days for returning back to my home in Chennai.
6. Met CO. Seems to be a nice guy. Working culture here is too good. No so formal. Need to learn from these guys. Had an intro to the cubicle mates.
7. Cool guys and not a better project. Foreseeing some tough time later. They seem to have less hope in me particularly KB (client name suppressed), the 10+ year experienced in PLOM (App name suppressed) is of particular concern and looks like not liking me. But CO is too cool and he helps me understnad things literally well.
8. Happy news. My card is working now. Commuting from Naas is the foremost problem and next to that is the charges levied by Osprey damn hotel. Need to look some guest house close to the office.
9. I need to charge up & cope up with this culture & people irrespective of the expenses. Go.. speak with people. Build some positive attitude in you.
10. KV (HR name suppressed) helped a lot to sort out the problem with my card. Good man!!
11. Noon lunch was terribly bad. A veg sandwich which I can't master eating. CO seemed embarassed but didn't show off. Surprising thing is nobody stared at me unlike in India.
12. Hired a taxi to get back to the hotel (Exp: 30 EURO). Forgot to get the receipt for that.
13. Withdrew 200EURO from an ATM nearby
14. Learnt that some 5+ colleagues are here around in a place called Saggart; 49 Kms away from Naas. Let's have time to meet them.
15. Spoke with Amma & Hari. Fot to tell them that nothing is fine in this "VILLAGE". Need to get back home soon.
16. More things to worry. Hope things will get fine.
17. Now moving out for shopping.. err.. for just roaming.
18. Got a damn thing done. Kept the perungayam (Asafoetida) dappa on one of the lights in my hotel room. It got melt in the heat of the bulb. The bulb is damaged badly; also the furniture. I'm too scared that I'll be billed for it. Need to get outta this place ASAP.
19. Got some bread from a grocery nearby. (EXP: 8EURO)

Total expense today: 71.30 EURO

The Irish Days - DAY-1

2009-11-28T15:55:00.001-08:00

Day-1: 8-June-2008
Place: Guest Room in The Osprey Hotel, Naas

1. Had a nice journey from Frankfurt to Dublin
2. Hopped on to a taxi from Dublin to The Osprey Hotel in Naas town. Seems that the taxi has over-billed : 88EURO.
3. Travel cash card given by my employer not working. Paid the hotel 125EURO for check-in. Have a balance of 150EURO.
4. Running out of money!
5. Sent a mail to HR & Travel desk: "Please help". Today's sunday; so they hardly listened. But in no way I have money to start tomorrow or to eat today. I'm starving.
6. In search of an ATM that could give me MONEY, I found Naas to be a peaceful place if you're RICH. It's not the good old story of enjoying life abroad. No ATM is accepting my card. Help me, my God.
7. The sun is still shining at 19:56 :)
8. Not able to make a call to UK HR
9. Finally reached HR . He said things will be sorted out tomorrow.
10. The day was over with a cup of noodles boiled in a water heater !!
11. Meanwhile, I felt Rambha's (BTW, thats my pettie doggie. Why the hell did I forget about my parents!) absence leading to a bit of home-sickness, at least mentally.
12. Tomorrow will be a good day.

The Irish Days

2009-11-28T15:51:00.003-08:00

Before almost a year, the people of the town Kildare in Ireland were looking at yet another brown-tanned Indian guy in their streets. That was exactly during 8-June-2008 to 8-Aug-2008, when I stayed there in the Derby House Hotel paying 60EURO per night (I'm puzzled why these hotel guys are not bothering much about the day), the value of which I now recognize sitting in a guest house in the Bristol city of the United Kingdom as a run-by-salary living being.

I tried to blog about my stay in Ireland. But as usual the interest faded away. I don't feel the compulsion to justify why I didn't continue with my posts, because most of the bloggers know it.

I was all alone there in Room#207 in the Derby House Hotel. I had nobody to listen to my worries or happiness (note the order). So, I logged everything in my personal notepad-turned-diary. I wrote about my lonely visits to the Dublin city; about my office hiccups; about my friendships with some Pakistanis; almost everything. The diary turned to be my best friend. After almost a year now, when I opened my diary again and read my own words- first, I felt silly about myself- second, I felt nostalgic and felt going back to Ireland.

To be frank, I feel Ireland is a heaven on the Earth; no exaggarations.

Why am I writing all these now? I have again started to think about posting my experiences in Ireland; the experiences of my fight with loneliness and frenziness in a foreign land. BUT, I'll be just copying my daily diary journals into these posts. So, I disclaim: THIS HAD BEEN AN INTERESTING STORY FOR ME. I'M NOT SURE WHETHER YOU WILL LIKE IT. THE LANGUAGE IS TOO TERSE OR EVEN KIDDISH AT TIMES (LIKE CRYING TO YOUR MOTHER); THAT FIT MY JOURNAL. NO DETAILS.

Hawww, that's primarily because of my laziness to rephrase my journals. But, it will be genuine and frank so that you will know I have gone nuts over myselves. I'm sure that you'll smile over each of my journals of how The-first-time-lonely-foreign-visitor had behaved.

Good luck reading !

BCB6 - A try to gather people with a common interest on DSL

2008-03-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,

I have planned to discuss/present about my ideas on Domain Specific Languages at BCB6.

Please comment on this post / mail to me, if you have any idea of presenting something in BCB6 about:

1. Domain Specific Languages
2. Meta programming
3. UNIX little languages
4. Software Factories
5. XML
6. MDA (Model Driven Architecture)
7. LISP
8. COBOL
9. APIs
10. Internal DSLs in Ruby (!!)

All these topics converge towards the broad concept, DSL.

Here are some links that can help you to start with:
http://martinfowler.com/articles/languageWorkbench.html
http://martinfowler.com/bliki/DomainSpecificLanguage.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-specific_programming_language
http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~timm/dm/dsl.html

I think more people from ThoughtWorks will be interested in this stuff. We could turn it into a small-scale collective.

I doubt that I'm i over-enthusiastic as this is my first Barcamp to attend. Please let me know, if so :)

Accident between Me and a Sweet Corn

2008-03-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

Months ago, I went through an accident while riding a bike. It shattered one of my foretooth, which was then treated to have an artificial tooth (Crown, as they call). Doctors warned me that the tooth should not be used to bite anything hard and it was just for cosmetic purposes. Calculations told me that I have spent more than Rs.15,000 just for cosmetics!!

I maintained my new, so-called aesthetic, tooth well until yesterday when I tried biting a sweet corn. Heck, I heard a cracking sound and a little bit of pain. I rushed to my dentist, and after taking an x-ray, he said, that the internal support of the tooth is fractured. Well, I thought it may cost a few hundreds, but my caring dentist said that the tooth must be removed and be supported by the adjacent teeth. Ultimately, 3 teeth will be treated and crowned. The estimated bill was for around Rs.12,000 !! Accidents happen both in large and small scales. Life is mystically designed !!

Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. once said in a speech: "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." So true. What we are as human beings presents itself more fully in times of adversity than at times of ease. Anyone can be positive, polite and kind when things are going well. What distinguishes people with an extraordinary character from the rest of us is how they respond when life sends one of its inevitable curves. They don't crumble or surrender. They reach deeply into themselves and present even more of their highest nature to the world.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was on the highway, ready to travel to Chennai from my home-town. The bus had been delayed by a few hours so it felt good to be close to start. I had my walkman in place, a new book to read and my magazine. Then, the driver's voice came over: "We had found a puncture in one of the tires. We regret that we must cancel this bus." The reactions that statement provoked were fascinating.

One man close to me became belligerent to the driver. A couple in another row grumbled loudly. A gentleman actually kicked the seat in front of him. Yet some passengers responded differently, with a quiet humanity. An elderly gentleman smiled as he helped others take their bags down from the overhead compartments. A teenager, rather than trying to rush off like most of the other passengers, stopped to help a woman with a disability. The lady sitting next to me laugh and said, "Hey, it's not the end of the world," before calling her kids and sharing her adventure with them. The wisest among us have a remarkable ability to maintain grounded when times get tough.

No life is perfect; mine certainly isn't. We all must face challenges, both large and small. This very minute, somewhere in the world, there are parents dealing with the death of a child. This very minute, someone has suffered an accident that will devastate their loved ones. This very minute, there are human beings dealing with illness in a hospital bed. Sickness, loss, disappointment. No one gets through life without experiencing this stuff. But you and I have the power to choose to rise above our external circumstances. We always have the choice to be strong and positive when things fall apart. We have the right to use our stumbling blocks as stepping stones to our greatest life. This isn't motivational sloganeering. I believe this is truth.

I feel really great to stay cool, positive, and kind, even after my brand-new accident with a Sweet Corn.

Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby

2008-03-12T11:21:00.000-07:00

Hmm.. frustrations are born with us.. they keep us away from what we aspire or what we dream. I was too far away from practising Ruby.. but never forgot it. And for the second time, I have started looking for good materials on RoR. There are plenty of manuals, books, and documentations. One that I recently went through and very much impressed was: Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby

Interesting Name.. huh?? That impressed me in the first few pages but am not sure whether it's pace and quality are consistent throughout. Let me know if you find it interesting.

Barcamp Bangalore 6

2008-02-26T11:55:00.000-08:00

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness - to save oneself trouble.-Agatha Christie

After a long long time, am back to this blog as most of the bloggers do. I was quite busy with a couple of exams and busy days in office.

This time, I would like to recommend you all to attend the Barcamp Bangalore 6 to be conducted by this March. The date, venue and sessions are not yet confirmed.

Starring at the new word, BarCamp? In one word, they call it an unconference. Merely, like Wikipedia, where anybody conduct a session on any technical topic. The only qualification for registration is "You must be techno-savvy."

Most of the Barcamp enthusiats are budding entrepreneurs and some of them research-savvy. Anyhow, that would be a great time for me at the least.

Follow these links to know about the event and Barcamp:

BarcampBangalore
What is BarCamp?
Last Barcamp Blog - BCB5

Just google out "Barcamp Bangalore" and try to be there at the feast.

Ride on Rails !!

2007-12-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. -Beverly Sills

Ha.. after a long debate with my friends and a detailed study on various programming languages, I finally ended with an intention to try Ruby On Rails (RoR). Though many have suggested TextMate as a better IDE for Ruby, I had an eye on NetBeans. The interest actually roots back to my college days where I was in the evaluation of NetBeans Beta version. I lost the touch perhaps.

Just today, just now, I have installed all the gizmos for landing on Rails!! A big list of downloads including JDK, NetBeans(Ruby), Apache, and MySQL. Hmm.. so am also absorbed into the community of nextgen devs, hopefully.

Still, my love towards .Net, C#, code-behind model etc.. has not vanished and it will not. But, the catch is I have started to try various other ways of exploring the domain of web development. More posts will be here with a blend of both the perspectives of Design and Development of Enterprise Solutions !!

Which is better - cake or CAKE?

2007-11-23T12:23:00.002-08:00

In all intellectual debates, both sides tend to be correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny. - John Stuart Mill

Big letters don't make differences for a cake. The taste matters. Isn't it?

I was not aware of the debates going around in the industry about Ruby. Thats basically about comparing Ruby with other programming languages. Before proceeding further, I would like to insist that am passionate about C# and deep into the language's ability. And I write this article because for my previous post, I ended up with debates floating around with invalid (atleast to some extent) questions like that above.

Here is the famous Q&A model of writing an article which paves way to debates, but I need it in the form of a healthy discussion without hitting any individuals.

1. Should we compare Programming Languages?

Not all the questions need to be ended up in a single Yes or No answer.

Not much surprising, developers who are involved deep into technology never hesitate to compare languages. But those developers who are working as end users of any specific compiler for years, stick to that particular language, never get out of it and start to advocate on its behalf (some kinda addiction and possessiveness). The latter's stand is always that their pet language is the best in this world and the creator of that language is their God.

There is no point in sticking to any lanuage. Take the case of Microsoft. They started with BASIC, added 'Visual' to its name. Later they jumped into the so-called powerful VC++, and then with frustration created their own language C#, again with the same prefix "V." If nobody is there to compare programming languages in Microsoft, could Visual Studio be in the market, or could C# be? Please don't start any out-of-scope debates here whether am a proponent for Microsoft, or C# is better than Java/C++, or so with endless concerns.. and thats not the intention of this post. They are already under hot debate.

2. Can we compare an Interpreted Language with a Compiled Language?

This is a question which I faced indirectly for the previous post in my blog. The question I faced was, "Hey joker!! How dumb are you to compare C++ with JUST a scripting language, Ruby!!" I felt sorry for that friend. I have rephrased it to the question above?

In this ever-developing world of OSS, there is no difference between a compiled language and an interpreted language. Hot under the collar?? You should "not" get into academic text books to see the difference between the both. Rather, you must look around the industry altogether.

VB was an interpreted language, and now its getting compiled into IL (Intermediate Language) in .Net. (FYI, C# Java are all semi-compiled languages i.e., semi-interpreted languages) After all, a question raises here that "What do you mean by a compiler?" Root back. Get into books. It does not mean thats a conversion of a high-level language to Machine-understandable words. It CAN also mean the conversion of a very high level language into an intermediate level language. If you cannot go with this point, then you should not work in .Net or Java !!

Here is another crazy scenario for those developers adhering to compiled languages. Are you aware of a C/C++ "Interpreter"? Go through this, reference [4]. Thats okay.. are you aware of an emerging Ruby "Compiler"? Go through this, [5]. And thats why I suggest (not insist), don't say any language as Interpreted or Compiled. Rather, that should have the general label "Programming language" using which you communicate with the underlying machine.

There are setbacks for any Interpreted language. One of them importantly is - Interpreted languages are slower than Compiler Languages. The reason is that the code is validated against the syntax at run-time (parsed), dynamically linked, converted to the native language or an intermediate language. Whuf!! It really takes time.

The pros of the same family mostly revolve around easing the job of a developer. What he sees in the code is what he gets. They are easy to read, elegant to read (thats the only point I advocated in my previous post

The pros and cons doesn't end here. There are many. But, the general opinion is that Interpreted languages eats CPU cycle to make the developer's life simple.

I would like to throw lights at this point on well-biased comparative studies from both the ends [1] and [2]. Again, please don't debate about Mr.Naidu or Mr.Vincent here:) Take their words. Leave comments about them and their article there.

3. So, Interpreted languages should not be used in projects targeting at scalability?

If you have interpreted like the way, then it shows that you are stuck to a compiler. Increasing your hardware cost would fix it. As I already said, many (and not all) scripting languages are easy to read and hence easily maintainable (though the learning curve is not pleasing). This leads to an increase in productivity of the developers.

In simple cases, increasing the developer head-count is not better than increasing two servers, from the perspective of a CFO. Spending $40000 for 2 developers and $100 for a server is not better than spending $25000 for one developer and $300 on 3 servers. But kinda win-win between the CFO and fellow developer!! Again, please don't debate on CFO's profits over Developer's profit. This is not the context. Thoughtworks is an example for the above scenario. They are pioneers in increasing developers' productivity dramatically and they are into many Ruby projects. (FYI, not JUST Ruby projects, but many others)

4. This could be a valid point for projects involved with big (comparably ;) servers. So, what happens in the case of small hardware equipments? Can we use Scripting/Interpreted languages there?

There is a general misconception that Interpreted languages cannot be used in hardwares altogether. Popularity of a language has nothing to do with its ability. If C++ or C is used in most of the hardwares, that does not mean they are the only languages fit for hardwares. If you are looking for pucca scalability in hardwares, then you must end up doing it in machine language or in worse case, using 0000001010101010... :) and not using C/C++.

Am not aware of hardware programming, but at least have went through some articles to justify my stand. Interpreted languages can be used in hardwares. Then, what about the CPU cycles ate by those villainous Interpreters? World is moving towards compressing GBs into millimeters. Hardwares are getting better to withstand any load and sorry for those who work in legacy hardwares (You have the privilege to stick to Bjarne Stroustroup). Am speaking here about present and future, not history. And as of I know, there are hardwares which run on Ruby.

And again from a CFO's perspective, if you need 10 promising, experienced developers for developing a "scalable" hardware using C/C++ or any compiled language, then you need 2 hardware engineering architects and 3 software developers (or even 5 or 6 is also scalable for the pockets) to do it in ever-pleasing and easily maintainable interpreted languages.

I stress, am not even a novice developer for hardwares. But the above points could be validated against any resources available.

To make the counter-part happy, here is an excerpt from the reference [3]

Java runs at 1.8 times the speed of compiled C; Lua (using a JIT compiler), at 3 times; Python, at 6.7 times; PHP, at 7 times; Perl, at 9.8 times; and Ruby, at 16 times. So, where performance is critical, Java or a compiled language will fare far better than any dynamic language.

And I believe that CFOs and their company's clients will never give up feasibility in terms of Money over feasibility in terms of programming languages.

5. So, what is your conclusion?

Conclusions are upto you. But, here is mine:

It depends upon the situations. If you are targeting towards productivity of developers, then many (not all) of scripting languages are there to help you. If you are targeting towards a legacy hardware system and largely available developer community of Compiled languages (lazy enough HR department to catch a few scripting language developers), then go with the compilers. This is my opinion.

A word of caution: don't believe in any other's suggestions (here or in the comments that may follow). Research for yourself and end up with the truth, not even the fact!!

Here are the references I have used as a ground-work for writing this post:
1. http://sapnaidu.net/blog/?p=67
2. http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=123....
3. http://www.infoworld.com/infoworld/...
4. http://www.ddj.com/cpp/184402054
5. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1996960,00.asp
6. http://www.devx.com/RubySpecialReport/Article/34497
7. http://www.reybango.com/index.cfm/2007/...
8. http://www.radicalbehavior.com/5-question-...
9. http://rubyhacker.com/ruby37.html
10. http://www.activestate.com/Products/komodo_ide/?_x=1

Here are some important excerpts from these links, and the last one is important:

Ruby is 16 times slower than JVM"

Ruby is slow.

Ruby is notoriously slow, but we have lots of ideas for speeding it up.

I would say Ruby is Relatively Slow. Ruby does offer a significant amount of power and dynamicity. These Core and Much

Beloved features of the language and the Rails framework contribute to its Relative Slowness.

Fact is, when you make the machine do it, instead of the programmer, there is some expense to pay. These arguments are the same arguments used for and against ColdFusion.

Sure, the Twitter people could have implemented the whole site in Hardware, if they wanted pure On Metal speed. They chose to use technology that got them off the ground much faster than a Hardware/ Assembly/ C/ C++/ etc based platform would have gotten them.

You don't get both sides. Reference: [7]

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My Experiments with Ruby

2007-11-20T10:51:00.002-08:00

Old ways will always remain unless some one invents a new way and then lives and dies for it -Elbert Hubbard

Somedays ago, in my college days, I involved into a discussion with my pals about the level of heights reached by programming languages, frameworks and design tools these days. That was the time when we were introduced to Rational Rose and were fascinated the way it creates the skeleton code of our design. One of my friends, out of his fantasy, said, "You see Prem, some or other day, there will arrive a tool out of the cloud nine, which can simply translate the requirement specifications into chunks of codes. The Engineers' job would be just to wrap it and ship it out to the customer." We laughed with the typical dreams of full-time graduate student-engineers. Although that was a fantasy, I fear that Geekory is in His way to deliver such a tool to his fellows. Going through the language Ruby, without any surprise, reminded me of this discussion!!

As I was already saying, I started to look into Ruby. I was not used to any languages like SmallTalk, Scala, Perl, Python or PHP more than an extent, just had stints. The documentations and tutorials claim that Ruby is, atleast at its granular level, similar to the languages mentioned above. I don't know about it. But involving into thousands of lines of coding in .Net, when I suddenly looked into Ruby, it seemed to be a simple yet powerful language. The words mean it!

Better than speaking lots of words, I would explain you with an example. I used a typical example used in the tutorial for Ruby, from the book Programming Ruby.

To simply put, we will be simulating a song collection, with provisions to append, and delete, in both Ruby and C#. We shall then compare the lines of codes for both and the time spent on them. The result is the words of the authors of the book in its preface:

Our job is to solve problems, not spoonfeed compilers, so we like dynamic languages that adapt to us, without arbitrary, rigid rules. We need clarity so we can communicate using our code. We value conciseness and the ability to express a requirement in code accurately and efficiently. The less code we write, the less that can go wrong. (And our wrists and fingers are thankful, too.)

It happens in Ruby really, and here they in turn say:

These are bold claims, but we think that after reading this book you'll agree with them. And we have the experience to back up this belief.

Coming back to our song collection example, here is the small list of what we are gonna do:
1. A primitive object for the need, Song, with Track-name, artist, and duration as its members
2. A collection class which contains a list of songs, SongList, with methods to add a song, delete a song, and list a subset of the songs.

Simple!! But, what it takes to implement in a language like C#, which is backed by a "Spoon-feed compiler", is not that simple.

Here is the implementation of that in C#:

class Song
{
private string _name;
private string _artist;
private int _duration;

public Song(string name, string artist, int duration)
{
_name = name;
_artist = artist;
_duration = duration;
}

public string Name
{
get{ return (_name == null) ? string.Empty : _name; }
}

public string Artist
{
get{ return (_artist == null) ? string.Empty : _artist; }
}

public int Duration
{
get{ return _duration; }
}

public override string ToString()
{
return _name + " " +
_artist + " "+
_duration.ToString();
}
}

class SongList
{
private ArrayList _songs = new ArrayList();
public ArrayList Songs
{
get{ return _songs; }
}

public Song this[int index]
{
get{ return _songs[index] as Song; }
}

public SongList Append(Song aSong)
{
_songs.Add(aSong);
return this;
}

public void deleteFirst()
{
if(_songs.Count != 0)
_songs.RemoveAt(0);
}

public void deleteLast()
{
if(_songs.Count != 0)
_songs.RemoveAt(_songs.Count - 1);
}
}

class Test
{
[STAThread]
static void Main(string[] args)
{
SongList testSongs = new SongList();
testSongs.Append(new Song("Song1", "Artist1", 234))
.Append(new Song("Song2", "Artist2", 123))
.Append(new Song("Song3", "Artist3", 456))
.Append(new Song("Song4", "Artist4", 908));
for(int i = 0; i < testSongs.Songs.Count; i++)
Console.WriteLine(testSongs[i]);
}

Here are the facts of implementing this:

It took me nearly 30 minutes

Two trivial compiler hurdles

One trivial run-time hurdle

80+ lines of code

Most of the lines getting out of the developer's window

The most important, am experienced for 2 years in C# and for nearly 7 years in C++

And I felt shy for these figures, because when I tried the same in Ruby, the following code resulted:

class Song

attr_reader :name, :artist, :duration

def initialize(name, artist, duration)
@name = name
@artist = artist
@duration = duration
end

def to_s
"Song: #{@name}--#{@artist} (#{@duration})"
end

end

class SongList

attr_reader :songs

def initialize
@songs = Array.new
end

def append(aSong)
@songs.push(aSong)
self
end

def deleteFirst
@songs.shift
end

def deleteLast
@songs.pop
end

end

list = SongList.new
list.
append(Song.new('title1', 'artist1', 1)).
append(Song.new('title2', 'artist2', 2)).
append(Song.new('title3', 'artist3', 3)).
append(Song.new('title4', 'artist4', 4))

puts list.songs[0...3]

See how readable Ruby is.
Here are the figures for this implementation:

Took just 10 minutes

No compiler hurdles

No run-time hurdles

Just 40+ lines of code

Each line having not more than a few words typically 2 or 3

The most important than any other, I just started to practise Ruby yesterday !!

Stunning!! Frankly and truly, these figures are real. And most of the Ruby programmers could agree with it easily.

Now you can see that the implementation time has decreased one-third (C#:Ruby) and LOC decreased by half, and my experience is negligibly small with Ruby. Smile out :)

With increasing complexity, the implementation in C# turns to be a bottleneck, but hopefully not in Ruby, as the authors of the book claim. Here are the words for you again:

Our job is to solve problems .... The less code we write, the less that can go wrong ...

Heartfelt thanks to Thoughtworks for throwing lights on Ruby!!

There maybe pitfalls in Ruby too, but they are probably shadowed. If you come across any pitfalls of Ruby, I welcome you to post it here.

The words of a Creator

2007-11-18T10:42:00.000-08:00

I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose- Charlie Chaplin

Hope you have gone through the writings of any masters in any technology. I have also gone through one such. Those are the words of the creator of a language - very famous in futuristic developers' community - Ruby.

Yukihiro Matsumoto also called as "Matz" is the creator of the language Ruby. I don't want to go in detail about Matz or Ruby as you may find the resources by following the links above, if you are interested. I shall just reproduce the delighted words of Matz about his brain-child Ruby, from the foreword of the book "Programming Ruby The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide"

Man is driven to create; I know I really love to create things. And while I'm not good at painting, drawing, or music, I can write software.

Shortly after I was introduced to computers, I became interested in programming languages. I believed that an ideal programming language must be attainable, and I wanted to be the designer of it. Later, after gaining some experience, I realized that this kind of ideal, all-purpose language might be more difficult than I had thought. But I was still hoping to design a language that would work for most of the jobs I did everyday. That was my dream as a student.

Years later I talked with colleagues about scripting languages, about their power and possibility. As an object-oriented fan for more than fifteen years, it seemed to me that OO programming was very suitable for scripting too. I did some research on the 'net for a while, but the candidates I found, Perl and Python, were not exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a language more powerful than Perl, and more object-oriented than Python.

Then, I remembered my old dream, and decided to design my own language. At first I was just toying around with it at work. But gradually it grew to be a tool good enough to replace Perl. I named it Ruby---after the precious red stone---and released it to the public in 1995.

Since then a lot of people have become interested in Ruby. Believe it or not, Ruby is actually more popular than Python in Japan right now. I hope that eventually it will be just as well received all over the world.

I believe that the purpose of life is, at least in part, to be happy. Based on this belief, Ruby is designed to make programming not only easy, but also fun. It allows you to concentrate on the creative side of programming, with less stress. If you don't believe me, read this book and try Ruby. I'm sure you'll find out for yourself.

I'm very thankful to the people who have joined the Ruby community; they have helped me a lot. I almost feel like Ruby is one of my children, but in fact, it is the result of the combined efforts of many people. Without their help, Ruby could never have become what it is.

Is he the Geekory am searching for??

Inbound Revolution

2007-11-17T11:02:00.000-08:00

There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth...not going all the way, and not starting - Lord Buddha

Am stunned!! Really stunned!!

If you are a person who is in Software Industry and if you are a person looking for a job that respects you in the first place and if you are a person looking for a good pay for that too and if you are a person who deserve it really, then you are ought to be in Thoughtworks

Yes. Thinking that am a person as described above, I went through the interview process of ThoughtWorks. Fortunately, I was given the opportunity to reach their dynasty at least upto the 4th round in the process. [As you may have gone through in the site, the process has 8 rounds, if am right]. Unfortunately, kicked off in the logical assessment round. Eventhough I highly doubt the reliability of such kind of tests, over the coding assessment, I really enjoyed the process.

Before doing the groundwork for attending their interview, I was not very much interested in blogging, nor in developer community activities, nor in OSS, nor in designs and patterns, nor in a revolutionary software development methodology-Agile, nor in many things that are not listed here. Simply to put in the words of one of my friends (Abishake Subramanian) "I was under real bull-shit" and now Thoughtworks has revolutionized my inner-sense. I now feel that I have to pay respect to the global surname I hold "Engineer." Thanks to Thoughtworkers for revolutionizing the developer society.

I have now started to work on these fields:
1) Designs and Patterns
2) Updates in newer versions of .Net and C#
3) Downloaded a OSS source-code, BlogNet, and analyzing it
4) Downloaded Ruby, installed it and going through the know-hows
5) Restarted (!!) this blog
6) Forget my office while am not there(supposed not to reveal.. sucks)

and last but not the least, research works on Agile and planning to conduct a seminar on that in the college where I graduated.

So, just the entry point of this company has pulled me out the "real" bull-shit and truly revolutionized my thoughts. If I would get chance to get into their office as an employee, I suppose I'll be near to God of Softwares (can we name as Geekory, a random name perhaps)

And this blog will turn active from this day and discuss about all the things mentioned above. I welcome you all to respond to my posts.