It's been a while...

It's been a while since I did anything on this blog. Is my interest in blogging slowly fading away? Am I so busy that I can't write a couple of lines on this site?

Part of the latter is true. October has been a hectic month filled with tech interviews, dealing with new technology, and some management/non-technical books. As days pass, I will write reviews about some of these books. November started off with the Deepavali festival and me ending up sick for a couple of days :(

Hope things turn out to be good in the days to come...

When to Leave Your First IT Job

i-Technology Viewpoint: When to Leave Your First IT Job @ JAVA DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

An article that talks about how a work environment should not be and how one should recognize those sings and start looking out for another job which offers benefits that the current company doesn't.

The first point the author makes is - don't work in cubicles. Look out for companies that provide offices rather than cubicles.

Hmm..., I am sitting in my cubicle, it's late night and was reading this article to think about something other than the problem I am trying to fix & deliver...

Is this the sign I should be looking out for? :)

Instiki - Simple, yet powerful

Instiki is a neat Wiki clone. The installation & setup process is so simple, that it doesn't even take a minute to setup the Wiki after one downloads it. All one needs is Ruby 1.8.1 or greater. It's simple, yet powerful.

I got to know about this from Ruby on Rails site.


How it does it?
* Two step installation: embedded web server (WEBrick) makes for easy installation
* One screen configuration

Feature list?
Basic features:

* Revisions: Follow changes on any page from birth. Easily rollback to an earlier revision
* Authors: Each revision is associated with an author, so you can see who changed what
* RSS feeds: track recently revised pages from an RSS aggregator

Other features

* Regular expression search: Quickly find deep info
* Exporting: Transport the entire wiki as HTML or wiki markup in a zip
* Multiple webs: Create separate wikis with their own namespace
* Password-protected webs: Keep private things private
* Reference tracker: Find pages linking to the current one
* Speed: all pages in memory (Uses Madeleine for persistence)
* Markup choices: Textile (default / Red Cloth), Markdown (Blue Cloth), and RDoc
* Internationalization: supports wiki words in latin, greek, cyrillic, and armenian characters
* Color diffs: Track changes through revisions

Protothreads: lightweight, stackless threads in C

Protothreads: lightweight, stackless threads in C: "Protothreads are extremely lightweight stackless threads designed for severely memory constrained systems, such as small embedded systems or wireless sensor network nodes. Protothreads provide linear code execution for event-driven systems implemented in C. Protothreads can be used with or without an underlying operating system."

Can software have opinions?

A nice article from Loud Thinking

"The core theme seems to be that it's considered arrogant on the part of the software builder to limit features, or decide not to implement them, on the basis of their believes in how the software should be used. In other words, some people want the maximum amount of flexibility in their software and then they will figure out how to use it best for themselves, thank you very much."

Microsoft LinQ

Now-a-days application programmers hear the term ORM used more often. ORM stands for Object Relational Mapping. Example: Hibernate, iBatis

In simple terms, they allow object oriented applications to look at relation data as another object on which methods can be called upon. The layer takes care of the database specific details, thus leaving the programmer to think clearly in terms of just the functional aspect.

Microsoft has come up with LinQ which promises this on their .NET platform.

The Language Integrated Query (LINQ) Project will offer an integrated programming experience, enabling developers to query object, relational and XML data directly from within C# and Visual Basic – without having to use multiple programming languages.

Project LinQ is to be shipped with newer versions of VS.

Things to note:
1.Set of specifications that define how queries are expressed in API form
2. Extends the .NET Framework to include language-integrated query operations
3. Two API’s: DLinq, for accessing relational, SQL-based data, and XLinq, for accessing hierarchical, XML-based data
4. Compile-time type checking, which lets developers know about errors as they're writing their queries

It has been in the making for half a decade.

101 LinQ samples (written in C#) are available here

Thanks to Gangadhar for the links +"Things to note" notes.

Back from Vacation

I am back from a long vacation. Haven't used the computer during the whole time, that by itself is a big time achievement. ;)

Will start to post within the next couple of days.

Quote of the Week

A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build
- Fred Brooks

[Book] Debugging the Development Process

Debugging the Development Process by Steve Maguire (author of Writing Solid Code) is an excellent book that deals with "Practical Strategies for Staying Focused, Hitting Ship Dates, and Building Solid Teams" (from the back cover).

If Writing Solid Code is for programmers, then this one is for Managers, Leads, or yet to become Managers/Leads.

The book focuses on how to keep your team focused, motivated, set the right goals and not let unnecessary work/meetings, bad schedules stop them from doing their daily chores and much more.

Key Points:

• Avoid anything that doesn't improve the product.
• Always set detailed goals, priorities and quality bars for each project.
• Fix bugs then and there, don't wait for time that will never come.
• Use existing systems to assist you in the process.
• Use negative feedback to achieve desirable results.
• Always try to fix the root cause of the problem.
• Determine the exact requirement before plunging into action.
• Never commit, if you know you can't meet the dates.
• Don't do something just to please everybody. You will jeopardize the product.
• There ain't any such thing as free product or feature.
• Don't implement a feature just for the heck of it.
• Make sure it's worth the writer's time before asking for a report.
• Use postmortem reports to improve your development process.
• Make sure you have a clear agenda before calling for a meeting, and make sure the agenda/action items gets done.
• Keep aggressive but attainable schedules.
• Never allow an arbitary dealine jeopardize the product.
• Break long-term projects into shorter, well-defined subprojects.
• Kick your best programmers out of the group if they aren't growing/learning to a different group.
• Provide on-the-spot feedback, don't wait for the annual performance review.
• Programmers need to understand that writing bug-free code ain't easy, so they should do everything under their power to detect and prevent bugs.

UI Patterns and Techniques: Introduction

Written by Jenifer Tidwell (MIT alumni) this site discusses some common patterns in the interaction design some of which are suitable for both Web based and desktop applications. I haven't gone through the entire site throughly (just skimmed through them), I liked the patterns in the "Getting Input from Users" and "Showing Complex data".

HCI (Human Computer Interaction) has become a major subject in itself, as we started to depend on computers to do most of our work. Modern Design Patterns not just deals with programming/database related problems but also deals with the Look & Feel of the application among others.

This site classifies the UI patterns & techniques into

• Organizing the Content
• Getting Around
• Organizing the Page
• Getting Input from Users
• Showing Complex Data
• Commands and Actions
• Direct Manipulation
• Stylistic Elements

Each of the them answers the 3 questions - When, Why, How, followed by examples if applicable.

This is going to be published as a book titled "Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design" by O'Reilly Media publication (expected: late 2005)

Google talks the Talk

Google announced Google Talk recently. Yes it's an IM (Instant Messenger) in the lines of Yahoo! messenger or MSN messenger.

It has a neat, simple interface. All you got to have is a GMail id for authentication purpose. It also supports voice calls to other computers. The quality of which is quite good.

Still in Beta, so I am expecting more features to be added before the full-fledged product is released.

As a side note, Google Desktop Search 2 (also in Beta) is fantastic with it's sidebar feature. The only thing I currently don't like in that is there is no "Remove All" feature in any of those tabs eg., Email - If I have 10 emails, currently I have to choose each of them and delete. The other problem is with the Auto-Hide feature - doesn't work most of the times.

State of Ajax: Progress, Challenges, and Implications for SOAs

The article talks about AJAX aligment with Web servies and SOA (AJAX uses XML as the standrard payload) and the implications of SOA.




Thanks to Gangadhar for the link.

Nice Reads - A list of blogs

A collection of blogs mostly written by well-known people in the Software industry such as Grady Booch, Martin Fowler, Steve Vinoski, and the likes.

• Handbook of Software Achitecture
• Martin Fowler Bliki, Martin Fowler Home page, Articles by Martin Fowler
  
• Loosely Coupled - Technology news
• Blogs@Thoughtworks.com
• Middleware matters - Steve Vinoski's Blog
• Blogs by Don Box

Will add more to this as I come across them...

Quote of the Week

Successful people don't do different things, they do things differently.


As you can see the title has changed from "Quote of the Day" to "Quote of the Week" as I am running out of good quotes (doesn't mean that there aren't any available). This is also because I am just back from a short vacation and my mood hasn't still changed.

Ruby Quiz

Ruby Quiz is a weekly programming challenge for Ruby programmers with similar goals like the Python Challenge.

The Python Challenge

The site contains a set of riddles designed to provide an entertaining experience for people who are working with Python or for those who are learning the language. It also showcases the power of the Python modules & features.

Stroustrup: C++ Style and Technique FAQ

Bjarne's own collection of freqeuently asked questions which includes questions that deal with why certain features are not available in C++, and how certain features work.

• Can I write void main()?
• Why doesn't C++ have a final keyword?
• How do I deal with memory leaks?

Quote of the Day

When everything fails, try Patience.

The Function Pointer Tutorials

This tutorial focuses on not just Function pointers, but also on Callbacks, Functors in both C and C++. Also at the end of the tutorial there is a list of useful external links which provide additional information on this topic and also on related topics.

NoodleGlue - Bridging the divide between C++ and Java

What does it do ?
NoodleGlue is a system which generates the source code necessary to create Java "wrapper" files which mirror your C++ classes. The NoodleGlue generator applications create several types of source file, both Java and C++, which must be compiled along with your application. At runtime your application will use a runtime library which will be automatically loaded whenever you use one of the bridged classes.

Main Features
* Far quicker and more reliable than manually writing painful JNI code. Using NoodleGlue can save months of laborious and error prone coding - we do the tedious work for you.
* Much more complete and flexible than alternative wrapping technologies such as SWIG, and much more applicable to legacy code than GCJ.
* Almost all compatible features of C++ can be mirrored in Java, including templates, enums etc.
* References to Java objects may be passed to C++ code which can treat them exactly like a native C++ object (calling methods etc)
* C++ classes may be subclassed in Java, and used in C++ with complete flexibility - for instance a Java class may override a method of a C++ class, and the new object can be passed as a parameter to C++ code, which will use the overriding Java method.
* The inheritance hierarchy is maintained - even multiple inheritance of pure abstract classes in C++ is translated into multiple interface declarations in Java.
* Extremely low execution overhead - in most cases the code generated is much more efficient than hand generated code. There is virtually no overhead imposed upon objects above the unavoidable JNI code required when traversing from one language to the other.
* With C++ code that uses reference counting rather than manual deletion of objects (or can be adapted to do so) almost all memory management is automatic.
* Custom translation modules allow optimisations for very efficient bridging and caching of complex types.
* Optional automatic recognition of Java patterns such as "get" and "set" methods, which allows automatic enhancement of the code by adding support for Java conventions such as Property Change events etc.
* "HyperWrapping" allows additional methods to be added to the Java proxies without subclassing, and with no overhead.


An overview of NoodleGlue by Tree is also available in the July issue of CUJ.

Quote of the Day

As you climb the ladder of success, be sure it is leaning against the right building.

[C++] Does anybody know what a sequence point is?

Sequence Points and Expression Evaluation
Every C++ programmer should know it. However, when this question is asked even experiecned programmers with many years of hands-on experience concede they have no idea.

This article sheds some light on the secret and explain what they are and why it is important to be aware of them.

Compile-Time Computations in C++

Compile-Time Computations in C++: Novel Template Programming Techniques
A nice article on Compile-Time computations in C++ by Angelika Langer (the author of Standard C++ IOStreams and Locales - Avanced Programmer's Guide and Reference).

C++ Expression Templates: An Introduction to the Principles of Expresson Templates
This article starts off with examples of Compile-Time Computation and then moves on to Expression templates.

Quote of the Day

Being defeated is often a temporary condition, giving up is what makes it permanent.

Functional Gap vs. Bug

Today a couple of us were talking about the product we develop, and the topic of Functional Gap and Bugs was raised. A friend of mine, Santosh, gave a quick witty (but valid) remark in this regard.

It goes something like...

"Funtional gap is something which we dont promise exists but client expects.
A bug is something which we promise does not exist but the client finds it."

Software Engineers Aren't Doing Enough To Really Create Error-Free Software @ JDJ

The article talks about problems that occured due to a software bug, the cost of finding & fixing them. Also contains some good quotes by Edsger Dijkstra.

"Testing can only prove the presence of bugs, not their absence."

"If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in."


Testing therefore is not the verification that a program works, but a search for whatever bugs can be found within the time and scope constraints of its execution. In an odd way the whole process of testing sort of vindicates the fact that programming creates malfunctioning code that needs checking and rechecking before it can be shipped.

Wanna Learn Java?

Some of the books, I found useful during the period I learnt Java (J2SE) are

• Core Java 2 - Volume I Fundamentals
• Core Java 2 - Volume II Advanced Features
• Better, Faster, Lighter Java
• Java Language Specification

For J2EE, I found the following books useful.

• Professional Java Server Programming
  
• Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development
• Expert One-on-One J2EE Development w/o EJB
• Hibernate in Action
• JSF in Action
• Spring in Action
  

I also found the Head First Series -> Head First Java book to be a decent buy. Though the approach is completely different from other technical books, I found it interesting and funny to read through the book. I also liked the other Head First Design Patterns for the same reason.

Head First Design Patterns: Though the book deals with less number of patterns than the GoF Design Patterns book, for the same reason (the presentation), it's an interesting read.

I heard the other books in the series, "Head First EJB" and "Head First JSP & Servlets" are also good (I haven't read them yet).

Note: I will provide the Amazon links to all the mentioned books later during the day.

Continuous Integration

The article written by Martin Fowler talks about reliable build process, automated build scripts, unit testing, and self testing code.

Cruise Control from ThoughWorks is a open source tool that can be used for automating continuous integration.

Quote of the Day

Do a kindness once and it will be seen as favor, do it twice and it becomes a duty.

Groovy

Another language to look at which contains features of Python, Smalltalk, and Ruby.

From the site:
Groovy is an agile dynamic language for the Java 2 Platform that has many of the features that people like so much in languages like Python, Ruby and Smalltalk, making them available to Java developers using a Java-like syntax.

Groovy is designed to help you get things done on the Java 2 Platform in a quick, concise and fun way — Groovy brings the power of a scripting language directly into the Java 2 Platform. For example:

• Shell scripting using Groovy allows the full power of the Java Platform to be brought to bear to the task at hand.
• Groovy can be used (and indeed is already being used) as a replacement for Java for small and medium sized applications to execute on the Java 2 Platform.
• Groovy can be used as an embedded language for dynamic business rules or extension points utilizing the agility of Groovy and saving the cost of redeploying applications for each change of rule (especially when the rules are stored in a database).
• Groovy makes writing test cases for unit tests very easy.

As well as being a powerful language for scripting Java objects, Groovy can be used as an alternative compiler to javac to generate standard Java bytecode to be used by any Java project.

Quote of the Day

Happiness is nothing more than health and poor money.

Ruby Home Page

Ruby Home Page

Another interesting scripting language that is Object Oriented. Have to try it sometime.

Dive Into Python

Dive Into Python

A nice book on the Python language and it's available for free download. The tutorial in the Python manual that comes along with the installation is also a good place to start.

Guess What? It's AFLAX after AJAX

When I am getting used to hearing the newly coined moniker AJAX, these guys come up with another - AFLAX and guess what? Flash replaces JavaScript.

Not only have these folks come up with the moniker, but also with a product that could be used to develop applications on top of this technology.

The website also compares AFLAX with AJAX.

AJAX: Asynchronous JavaScript and Xml Build dynamic, rich internet applications Uses JavaScript and XML Connected via XML web services Relatively complex programming model Deploys to Dynamic HTML

AFLAX: Asynchronous Flash® and Xml Build dynamic, rich internet applications Use advanced development languages (C#, VB.NET, Java*) User interfaces and vector graphics using XAML Connected via XML web services Simple programming model Deploy directly to Flash®, the world’s most ubiquitous platform

* Java - sometime in 2005

"The major difference is straight-forward: use advanced programming languages with the associated tools (i.e. Visual Studio.NET) and deploy the same application to any browser, any platform, and nearly any device with a consistent look, feel, and experience."

An hour or so ago, I wrote about AJAX, Smart Clients, and about Mircosoft's new initiative Atlas, and now this seems to be much more promising than those. As a developer one has hell a lot of choices in this world.

I better stop here and go back to bed.

Microsoft Atlas

Some have started claiming that Microsoft pioneered AJAX when Outlook Web Access was introduced way back in 1998. Now Microsoft is working on Atlas, a web based framework. More info at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2005/06/28/416185.aspx

AJAX - What is that?

AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Wikipedia defintion) is a new term coined to represent an old technique. People have used the combination of JavaScript and XML for quite some time now, since late 90's.

The term itself has become quite popular in the web development arena. The growing popurality of AJAX became visible mainly with the advent of Google's GMail, Maps, Suggest.

Server-side UI frameworks like Sun's JavaServer Faces (JSF), a component framework, can have a AJAX based front-end (JSF-AJAX). They also have examples which are JSF based implementations of auto-complete, and progress bar.

Google Code has a open source project AJAX based XSLT called AjaXSLT.

"AJAXSLT is an implementation of XSL-T in JavaScript, intended for use in fat web pages, which are nowadays referred to as AJAX applications. Because XSL-T uses XPath, it is also an implementation of XPath that can be used independently of XSL-T."

OTOH, a section of the web developer community is moving away from client-side scripting (using JavaScript) to server-side frameworks like JSF, Tapestry.

Considering the amount of hardware resource available on the client-side, and the results seen from using GMail, I believe (in general) AJAX is the way to go...

Google Code - Open Source projects

Google Code - Open source projects are mainly developed on top of the Linux platform.
core dumper, perf tools are nice tools to have if you are a C++ developer. They could come in handy during single/multi-threaded application/library development.

Folks interested in data structures & algorithms can look at or even participate in the Sparse Hashtable project.

Python folks, no need to worry as Google is filled with a lot of Python-loving (crazy) people. There is Goofy/Functional which brings functional programming aspects to Python. I have plans to become one of you soon.

There are a few more projects I haven't looked into...

Fresh Start....

This is my second attempt to create a blog of my own. The first one lasted for a day after which I forgot about it for so long, now I don't even remember what I named it. So today, I thought I will start a new one not about myself but about the technologies I work on or read about.

Let's see for how long this one lasts.