Now that my “analysis” is complete, step 2 meh, step 3 profit

A loooooong time ago in a city faaaaaar far away I bought myself a pair of headphones. Back then they costed me a bomb – 3000 INR. This was in 2003. Since then the following have happened:

- I moved between 3 cities

- The headphones are still intact

- I went to Korea and returned

- The headphones are still intact

- I got grey hair

- The headphones are still intact

- I put on a lot of weight

- The headphones are still intact

- I got married

- The headphones are still intact

- I have a kid now

- The headphones are still intact

- The city Bombay changed its name to Mumbai

- The headphones are still intact

… I guess you get the drift. Not only are these the most awesomest headphones I’ve used but also the quality has not dwindled. In the meantime I ran through other headphones including Sennheiser and Philips branded. They always ended up with either a broken casing or a snapped cable. So I stopped buying any of these funny things. Instead when I thought about buying a new pair my choice was obvious. The next time I have a chance, I am buying the HPM 1000. Now if only I can find the place where they sell Behringer in India… else I’ll have to travel to the US to get them.

For those who are curious here’s the product info:

http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/HPM1000.aspx

Considering that I spent 3000 INR (~$60) for headphones that are working perfectly even after 8 years, I’d say that was mighty good buy… or a manufacturing defect The second purchase will tell me.

When I joined IIIT, I knew nothing about computers. I hated programming (I still hate some programming languages) mainly because the very foundation of programming languages is not upto mark. Spoken languages, albeit have a lot of ambiguity, tend to be places where we can play around with words. Programming languages base their concepts in mathematical formulations or close to metal abstractions. In a simple sense programming languages are not for people to communication between one each other. They are for communication with a logic machine. This is the beginning of all problems in Computer Sciences courses. You know that something is wrong when so many books are written on how to squeeze your thinking into a programming language’s paradigm (OOPS, AOP, Structural languages etc;). You know something is wrong when processes are designed around how to “reduce” bugs.

I started off with the language C and honestly it is one of the most ridiculous looking language. Didn’t like it. Not one bit till I played a game called Comanche Gold – a helicopter sim. I wanted to change somethings in the game but did not know how. So I went to my professor back then – Dr Govindarajulu. He was the one who gave me the right reason to start programming. I attribute all of my programming skills to him. After that, I’ve swallowed C and then C++, as a bitter medicine. Still, I always used to write down what I was thinking before writing the first line of code. It just felt right.

Then I joined professional stream. By golly I never imagined that I had to write so much documentation for a measly single line of code. It was ridiculous amount of overhead. I know why that was the case – writing large systems is like the layers of onion. If you slice it open all you end up with are tears. It was also because of the fundamental flaw with the assumption that no matter what you do, you will always have bugs.

That one statement somehow has been mutated into a resignation. Apparently programmers now are entitled to having bugs in their code. They rely on testers to discover their issues. That is “outsourcing” (read: disowning) responsibility. I cannot stand that.

Now let us return to what’s happening on the “fixing” the above case – creating processes. I am sick and tired of processes that tend to get invented to fix this situation by adding peer reviews. Understand that writing code is easier than reading someone’s code. Peer reviews are a manager’s way of “fixing” the problem by picking the easiest and the laziest possible solution. I have never seen it work. Yes I am sure someone will say – you are doing reviews wrong. Read the lines again – reading code is hard. End it there.

Here’s how I started changing things on my team. First writing code has to be an enjoyable process. I do this by making sure that I do not hire idiots. Second I ensure that people own significant and complete pieces of code. Third all code that needs to be shared has to have interfaces. Fourth write code right the first time you write it. If there are bugs, scrap it and write it again – no change in timelines. Fifth my testers (currently) are for compliance and large scale integration – they are only to check if people have made the right assumptions with the usecases. Sixth I automate test cases as much as possible. Seventh documentation is not an after thought. At the same time I do not see it as something that needs to fill reams of paper. Eighth I need people to explain to me in plain English what is it that they are trying to achieve. Ninth I always tell my programmers what I want from them and not how I want it from them. Tenth I put them next to artists – I want people who create not who engineer. Eleventh I do not accept a single way to do things. Only when I see multiple discreet approaches do I know that someone has actually thought through the whole process. Twelfth I always think how does this change or add the core problem definition – This helps me make decisions around priority. Thirteenth I love iteration – I first give a solution and then IF and when required I speed it up. Fourteenth I hate guessing when it comes to optimisation. If the profiler does not say a piece of code is slow, it is not slow.

Above everything else, my approach to technology has changed completely. Earlier I believed that technology is what changes lives. That is not true. Technology that makes a difference (to people, processes, humanity??) is the only thing that matters. Today I only ask myself this – do I even need to write this line of code? Is it relevant to the big picture?

Infact I have now started insisting that people TALK before they write. Everything we are doing needs to be devoid of jargon (WTF XML). The problem definition gets one sentence and the solution gets one sentence. If I do not hear that I know that the developer is … outsourcing creativity and responsibility.

Outsourcing: Making sure that Clark Kent can buy a pair of spectacles and Superman can buy his cape at a shop. Outsourcing is not taking Superman’s job in saving the world. So please stop bastardising the word outsourcing. We’ve been doing it for a long time now (I outsource entertainment to Valve Software for TF2).

Anyway, I was getting an error saying it could not locate JRE 1.5 and that I had to install it. Ofcourse the software is stupid. It was around installed on my system but that OWB could not locate it. I bounced off of a few websites and none helped. So I put on my bug adder hat (read: Programmer) and thought – how could I possible write code that would fk up in the near future. I bounced off a lot of things but the final out come is that I solved it.

Here’s what you need to do.

I use Windows 7, 64 bit and the JRE was latest – version 7. First uninstall JRE and get yourself JRE v6 32 bit version. 64 bit version don’t seem to be working. Don’t ask why. Then install OWB 1.1.6. Run it in Windows 98/ME compatibility mode (right click on the exe, pick properties and switch to compatibility tab). That should solve the problems. I am not sure if adding the “JavaMemory*” variable to registry actually helped since it did not help me.

Along the way I came across weird errors like some MSVCR1000.dll missing and nonsense like that. It all worked fine when I installed it the way I had described above.

The first reaction I had when I read the stories on Win 8 is that MS is trying to sell me more bling. Nice, but tell me how are you controlling ALL of the user experience? UX starts, not from when you start the OS but from when you open the box. All those unboxing videos on YouTube should be an indicator of what it means to use a product.

If I were around to launch something like the Win 8 I’d just start off saying Win 7 is the most awesome product and Win 8 is my next big contribution to OSes. Don’t ever talk to me about memory usage when I am just trying to use the OS. I want to know about the memory when I am a developer not an Office user.

Having multiple interfaces will be tricky to say the least. It can back fire in most cases but I can be sure that it all depends on how the UX guys decided the flow would end up being. I really wish this will happen seamlessly. BTW don’t introduce more than 2 versions of the same OS – EVER. One targeted at HOME and the other for OFFICES. Also make sure that you don’t offer the multiple interfaces in multiple versions. All interfaces must be available in all versions. You developed the code for it, might as well get it onto people’s computers.