Developing Complex Systems (Software)

This is a topic of interest addressed by Grady Booch. The article can be found at:

http://www.cio.com/article/373215/_Things_Grady_Booch_Has_Learned_About_Complex_Software_Systems/1


In the article, he insists on things:

1) The fundamentals never go out of style. Four fundamentals :-

- Create crisp and resilient abstractions. (Think about things instead of processes)
- Maintain a good separation of concerns. (Only Semantically related things should be clustered together)
- Create a balanced distribution of responsibilities.
- Focus on simplicity.

2) You need a regular rhythm of releases

3) Focus upon growing executable architectures

- The code is the truth, But the code is not the whole truth

4) Create social structures that encourage innovation while still preserving predictability

- Businesses need predictability
- Businesses want innovation
- Successful projects need to find a balance

5) Have fun

- Without FUN, you're taking away the passion of the craftsman.

A Good Question

One Amazing C++ question that my friend +Abhinaba Basu asked me:

Write a program that prints "Hello" hundred times without using any loop or recursion statements and without writing the printing statement hundred times.
Hint : It is a c++ program


class Test
{
public:
Test()
{
std::cout << "Hello" <<>Now one follow up. He told me to optimize this.


Here we go....... (Simply, Add a destructor)


class Test
{
public:
Test()
{
std::cout << "Hello" << std::endl;
}
~Test()
{
std::cout << "Hello" << std::endl;
}
};

void main()
{
Test t[50];
}

Bermuda Triangles

I got time to find something about "Mystery Behind Bermuda Triangles". Following were helpful to me:

http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_Triangle

The second one is specially good since it lists everything in one page.

How do we think of our daddy at different ages?

At 4 Years
My daddy is great.

At 6 Years
My daddy knows everybody.

At 10 Years
My daddy is good but is short tempered.

At 12 Years
My daddy was very nice to me when I was young.

At 14 Years
My daddy is getting fastidious.

At 16 Years
My daddy is not in line with the current times.

At 18 Years
My daddy is becoming increasingly cranky.

At 20 Years
Oh! Its becoming difficult to tolerate daddy. Wonder how Mother puts up with him.

At 25 Years
Daddy is objecting to everything.

At 30 Years
It's becoming difficult to manage my son. I was so scared of my father when I was young.

At 40 Years
Daddy brought me up with so much discipline. Even I should do the same.

At 45 Years
I am baffled as to how my daddy brought us up.

At 50 Years
My daddy faced so many hardships to bring us up. I am unable to manage a single son.

At 55 Years
My daddy was so far sighted and planned so many things for us. He is one of his kind and unique.

At 60 Years

My daddy is great.

Thus, it took 56 years to complete the cycle and come back to the 1st stage.

jiggys thoughts

jiggys thoughts: "people and giving them separate identities." This is a good and interesting post on dravidians, other related entities.

Lohri - The Festival

Many people asked me about Lohri. Here are the some of the details:

Lohri Song

Sunder mundriya …ho

Tera kaun vichara..ho

Dulla Bhatti walla..ho

Dulle ne ti viahiyi..ho

Saer Shakar payi..ho

Kudi de boje payee..ho

Shallu kaun samete..ho

Chacha galee dese..ho

Chache choori kutee..ho

Zamindaran lutee..ho

Zamindara sidaye..ho

Gin-gin pole layee..ho

Ik pola reh gaya..ho

Sipahi farh ke lei gaya..ho

Aakho mundao taana..

Mukai da dana..

Aana lei ke jana..

The day

During the day, children go from door to door singing songs in praise of Dulha Bhatti, the Punjabi version of Robin Hood, a thief who helps the poor and fights for their rights. These children are given sweets and savouries, and occasionally, money. These munchies that the children collect are known as Lohri, and they are distributed at night during the festival. Some may be offered to the sacred fire.

The celebration:
Lohri is celebrated to denote the last of the coldest days of winter. Singing and dancing form an intrinsic part of the celebrations. People wear their brightest clothes and come to dance the bhangra and gidda to the beat of the dhol. Punjabi songs are sung, and everybody rejoices. Sarson ka saag and makki ki roti is usually served as the main course at a lohri dinner.

During this time, the farmers are undergoing a period of rest because wheat, which is the main crop in Punjab, is sown in October and harvested in March or April. In January, the fresh crop has just started growing, and the farmers are ecstatic. A prayer is made to Agni, the god of Fire, and Prasad is distributed. The prasad comprises of five main things: til, gazak, gur, moongphali (peanuts), and phuliya or popcorn. An offering is also made of this Prasad to the sacred fire.

Lohri everywhere

Lohri is celebrated throughout the country in different forms, as a harvest festival. It is called Pongal in the South, Bhugali Bihu in Assam, Bhogi in Andhra Pradesh and Sankranti in the central part of the country. Modes of celebrating Lohri are also different, but the message conveyed by the festival, that of setting aside differences and rejoicing by celebrating the end of the harvest season and the chilly winter, is the same.

My first US Trip - The Big Fight ... Pre-Trip

Sometime back.. hmm long back (depends on when you read this post), I was travelling to US. It always carry some excitement for many youths here and obviously a desire for here in India. It all  becomes more interesting when you encounter a useless problem that you have to fight before such an exciting trip.  Read on what I had to go through for Adobe Tech-summit, 2004 in San Jose, CA.

Since there are only a limited number of seats and only some %age of people can go at one time, it was always a condition of uncertainty before you get your manager's call. Well one day, I got it - made me very happy. A big task was to get a visa - since it was adobe arranged trip, none of us anticipate any kind of issues but we were still very uncertain. After all, this was going to be the first trip to the dreamland.  24th April, 2004 was the day for flying.

When I went to US Embassy in India for Visa (first week of april, 2004) along with my colleagues, they read my name in my passport as HEMANI instead of HEMANT.  I didnot understand that it was call for me initially. Then I realized that nobody was standing up and can be me. Now the REASON - the horizontal bar on top of T was very light and hence was being read as I - start of problems. I tried to convince the person but he was adamant on HEMANI. I tried telling him that last US visa (unused one) was also issues with the name 'T' but he was angad - immovable.

My company Adobe's facilities dept. did very well to communicate everything to US Embassy but all in vain as they read the name what they could read. I was left with a very less time left (number of days left could have been counted on fingers). I had my wrong VISA name but Hotel Bookings done, Tickets done and with only one option: "Get the name corrected from Passport Office." Wow!!! 7th April already gone, passport not yet back from Embassy, 9th April is holiday due to Good Friday. Remember: I had to fly on 24th April.

• Option One: If I go to passport office on 12th April to get it corrected, How will I get my corrected passport from the dept and then go to embassy to get my visa corrected and all that before 24th as we had to leave that day. Basically Not an option. Only God could help me.

• Another Viable Option that worked: I got the passport delivered from travel agent at Delhi passport dept on 8th April morning. Went to a few clerks and an officer and was ultimately told that department will issue an additional booklet over my passport and everything will be done in less than 3 working days. Wow!!! I could never think of such a fast processing from a Public Dept. in India. Now realization - India is improving.

Finally, on Tuesday i.e. 13th of April, 2004, I got my new additional booklet with my name as HEMANT VIRMANI.

Next target was to get VISA from US Embassy:

Well, then it was all done in two days when on Friday same week, I got an appointment for US Embassy for VISA processing. I was told by Adobe to meet an Officer. I realized "What a great job my company had done" read on... 

They had already talked to Embassy about my case and embassy people had realized my name - 'HEMANT' and it was matter of mins (60 to be precise) that I was told that I can collect my visa stamped on my passport on the same day. I collected it the same day.... 16th April, 2004

At last!! all my obstacles were gone with Adobe Support Staff doing a great job in getting this done.

With good support and never say die spirit, you can do the difficult tasks "easily"...