Patience Pays

Once again I checked the status today. But, unlike last time now it says:

"Police Report is clear and the passport is expected to be despatched by 18-02-2006 Subject to all documents being in order."

I have not paid any bribe to get it cleared. Which makes me believe that our government agencies can really work. What you need is an 'honest' patience to wait (I have waited for over ten weeks now) for the results to happen naturally. Most often it is only us, who try to catalyze the process by greasing with bribes, in order to 'accelerate' results.

Hope my trust in the system is not betrayed.

Bliss!

Spending a quiet afternoon.

Ganpatipule, Jan-2006

Time

"...And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's

sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the
same in the relative way, but you're older..."

Sunset at Ganpatipule near Ratnagiri, Konkan Coast

Mirror Image

 

Back On the Field

That's me and Diya at Deccan Gymkhana for a cricket outing against IndiaSoft earlier this month.

College mates

That is me, Raktim, Rakesh, Manas, Venugopal and Priyotosh (L->R) at Oval, B. E. College, Shibpore, Howrah. It must be final year of IIT?

Me a decade ago

A snap from my final year at IIT.

Invited to talk

Last Thursday I was at Sinhgad College of Science, Pune, to participate in their annual Industry Academia Forum (IAF). Prasanta too accompanied me. They had invited us to speak about Java.

About two hundred odd under graduate students of computer science had gathered in an auditorium to listen us. I spoke about genesis and uniqueness of Java and what makes it so popular. I had also compiled some interesting real world applications to demonstrate that Java can be used everywhere, right from e-Commerce, home networking, gadgets to space exploration. I could feel, most present there knew that java is limited to ubiquitous internet applications and shopping carts only. They were wide eyed after hearing how java powers Philips iPronoto and BMW in-dash infotainment or how Mars exploration was simulated using Java 3D imaging. Prasanta went deep and spoke about complex issues in enterprise applications like dealing with heterogeneous database, bridging isolated and disparate applications and how J2EE addresses such challenges.

This was my second such presentation. Earlier I had been to Wadia College. It is a always a great experience talking in front of such an audience and more so speaking about Java :-).

Hope, I could educate them about power and applications of Java and cleared some of their doubts...

Hats Off to The Metro Man

Chief of Delhi Metro, Mr. E. Sreedharan finds a spot in top 25 newsmakers list of US. Indeed a very rare tale of honest deeds in a country despaired by corruption and scams.

Top of the world

Diya with her Grand Pa.

Morning Cuppa!

Delicious indolence at Murud-Dapoli.

What lies ahead

This is basically a compilation of some interesting links I found around the web which tries to reveal futuristic things.

Check out Microsoft's vision of the future.

A peek into futuristic computing; slightly dated, still worth a dekko

IBM's Autonomic Computing

Google's ten golden rules to get the best out of knowledge workers in order to be a successful business in the next quarter century.

An excellent pictorial summary by Don Paragon about evolution of mankind and man made society.

Sun's vision of the future of programming- a nice compilation and commentary on how programming might look like in future!

Let me be honest; I am still biased towards Java :-). Here is a link, that has Q&A type information on future of Java.

Look at Future Web Technology. Don't sulk and hide your face if you find it Greek and Latin! Here is a more palatable version from W3C.

IRCTC starts Tatkal booking

Tatkal Booking now available online and scope of e-Tickets extended to cover all superfast trains including Rajdhanis and Shatabdi.

Way to go, IR!

Programmer's Bookshelf

Here are some of my personal favorites, found missing in this Programmer's Book Shelf :-(

• UML Distilled- Martin Fowler et al
• Thinking in Java- Bruce Eckel
• Core J2EE Patterns...- Deepak Alur et al, Sun Microsystems
• Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development- Rod Johnson
• Core Java Vol-I and II - C Horstmann et al, Sun Microsystems
• Data Structures and Algorithms in Java -Robert Lafore et al
• Inside The Java Virtual Machine - Bill Venners
  
• Mastering Enterprise Java Beans- Ed Roman et al
• C# for Java Developers- Allen Jones et al, Microsoft Press
• Inside COM- Dale Rogerson, Microsoft Press
• Design of UNIX Operating System- Maurice J. Bach

Stay tuned, I will add my reviews and opinions about these books. Till then, learn how to be a programmer, know about history's worst software bugs and, check out what skills are hot in 2006.

Just back from a Training

It was all about UML and OOAD. My employer sponsored me and also granted three days away from the work to attend this program. Following broad areas were covered during the course of this program.

• Using UML to model static and dynamic aspects of a system
• Class and Object identification and their inter-relationship
• Realizing Use Cases of a System
• Migrating from Analysis to Design of a System

Ah! After a very long time I have attended such a training, where, each and every session was interesting and full of information. At the end, I have some tangible takeaways too. It helped me refresh my UML and OOAD knowledge and bolstered my faith in profoundness of these golden principles:

• Encapsulate what might change
• Design by Contract
  
• Liskov Substitution Principle
  
• Open Close Principle
  
• Class with Single Responsibility
• Favour Composition over Inheritance
• Program to Interface than Implementation
• Dependency Inversion

I am equipped better now, I feel. Henceforth, everytime I sit back to design, these golden rules would be my pathfinder in the maze of software systems.

What a great way to shutdown 2005 and boot into 2006!