A Poor Software Guy

Will Patni be among top 5 by 2012?

noreply@blogger.com (Hemant Kumar) — Thu, 21 May 2009 06:51:00 +0000

I came across an article which showed prospective of Patni becoming one of the top 5 IT service provider of India. It was based on emails from Narendra Patni who is founder of Patni company and new CEO of company Jeya Kumar. Checkout some more profiles of big shots in Patni.

Jeya Kumar has plans to change working structure of company, extend its operation in terms of geography and verticals. It looks aggressive and one need to see if it will be successful. It helps being aggressive when you start new and there are plenty of prospects, but in today's situation where things are chaning, everyone want to play safe.

Jeya Kumar has a different view. In his thinking, time is changing and previous model of offshoring to reduce cost may not be good and that much workable in today's bad economic condition. In this recession time, each country want to save jobs and Patni will be working to develop a new working model to fit into that need of clients and work with them. If it works, they can get a huge chunk of work where other top IT providers are struggling to make way.

It is not that other companies are behind and not looking in this direction. Infosys for example already have its center in Australia, Canada and China. And I am sure they will be looking for expanding even in more countries for setting up DC. If working model changes, they won't be behind to quickly adopt it and start delivering in new environment.

Thing to watch is, will it really work. If this new model has potential, was not it will come a full cycle where situations were before offshoring evolved? Wait and watch:)...

Published a new EXcel to create Hyperlinked file list

noreply@blogger.com (Hemant Kumar) — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:13:00 +0000

I have published a new excel tool which will create hyperlinked file list. It could be useful for people in getting a list of all their files and opening them without actually going to that folder. People who are familiar with Excel, will like it.

Here is the link to this tool - HyperlinkFileTree_V0.1.xlsm

If you have received this excel and have any comments, please post it here. I would see those time to time and improve on it. Please don't send any mails to my email id.

Thanks,
Hemant Kumar

How life changed

noreply@blogger.com (Hemant Kumar) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:28:00 +0000

I thought of giving break to my journey and put some software life reltaed stuff. By this way I could be more frequeny in updating the blog.

Here is one which I received from one of my friend. I am not sure who wrote it but it is surely not by me. I really appreciate the feeling put by person who wrote it and please feel free to drop me a mail if you don't want it to appear here.

This poem is about a software engineer, spending a late night in office and feeling sad with how life is going. Nothing is much interesting but still he keeps living it like a machine. Today he is trying to think about past why when he had nothing he was happy, but now when he has much more, still he feel empty. Why?

Here I am sitting in my office @ night…
Thinking hard about life
How it changed from a maverick collage life to strict professional life…...

How tiny pocket money changed to monthly paychecks
but then why it gives lesss happiness….

How a few local denim jeans changed to new branded wardrobe
but then why there are less people to use them

How a single plate of samosa changed to a full Pizza or burger
But then why there is less hunger…..

Here i am sitting in my office @ night…
Thinking hard about life
How it changed…..

How a bike always in reserve changed to bike always on
but then why there are less places to go on……

How a small coffee shop changed to cafe coffee day
but then why its feels like shop is far away…..

How a limited prepaid card changed to postpaid package
but then why there are less calls & more messages……

Here i am sitting in my office @ night…
Thinking hard about life
How it changed…..

How a general class journey changed to Flight journey
But then why there are less vacations for enjoyment….

How a old assembled desktop changed to new branded laptop
but then why there is less time to put it on……….

How a small bunch of friends changed to office mate
but then why after 8'o Clock it always feel like getting late….

Here i am sitting in my office @ night…
Thinking hard about life
How it changed….. how it changed……..

To Bangalore and Back to Pune

noreply@blogger.com (Hemant Kumar) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:17:00 +0000

May 2003 - Training is finished and everyone is asked to fill their 3 top choice of location where they want to relocate for Job. Many of us wanted to stay in Pune (I forgot to mention in my previous post that location was Pune), reason - belongs to a nearby city, have relatives in city or just don't want a hassle to go to a new city and settle again. I was also in one of these category and requested Pune as a location. Didn't get it for my choice so tried to take the matter with HR. It sometime just seem unfair how these matters are handles but at same time we don't have any idea about why it is done so. Reasons gives are always so tangible that it always seems not right to not change it. Anyway after few attempts I gave up and accepted my given location - Bangalore.

Many of us were together in our 18 hour journey by bus to Bangalore. We were give a hotel accommodation near Majestic for one week. In that time period, we need to search for our own accommodation. It seemed like a hell of a job to find accommodation where 10 month of rent to be given as deposit. For a north Indian, it was a totally different culture and turf. With 4-5 people, we might be able to get a flat and collect deposit money. Ultimately one of my friend and myself found one arrangement to settle with few other people (in same company) in their rooms. It was a breather. At least it gave us time to make a good choice. Later we shifted to a different place with two other friends where we stayed till we left Bangalore. Most of the time eating will happen in company or outside in a hotel or any tiffin place. It is quite an interesting name given to a place where one could get idli, dosa and other south Indian dishes with self service option.

Being in first production software project was exciting. I joined a project where people were selected by taking interview. 8 of us got selected out of 18. It was even more exciting thinking that project might be good if they need to conduct another round of interview after company training. Then came the shock of another training (Induction) for project. As there was not enough seating space and plan was to shift project to new building, we were given a cubical (seats 4 people) with 2 PC in it. As we were not going to work on project soon, we were attending classes half of the time and later spending time reading mails and studying project documentation. It felt like Greek and Latin to go through those documents at that time. Even whatever classes, we were attending to see production screens, were not making any sense at all and everything was out of mind as soon as the day end. There I learn my another lesson of software life. Whenever starting new, just give it a shot. You might not understand even a bit, but that would make a base for you and when you get a starting point which you can understand properly, you would be able to link other details to it. It is enough if you are able to do that in your starting time. This works even now after my 8 year of job experience.

Did I tell you that my stream was mainframe? Sorry missed that as well. Anyway being mainframe it was hard in project to get us access when we are not working on project. So we just get to see it while getting training classes. After some time I and one of my colleague decided to do something. We came to know about few VB (visual basic) application which can be developed to help project processes. Why not to give it a shot. We might learn a language with more familiar name than COBOL (for mainframe). We expresses our interest for it. And soon we were given seat in project for work. No, No, No... it was not VB work. We were given project (mainframe) work. It might be our interest to work or our luck that we didn't get to learn VB. Whatever is the case, we were happy that we would be given our own seat and PC.

For rest of people who joined project with us, there was some talk about temporary relocation to Pune for QA work. What Pune? I was cursing my luck that why did I get a PC as I could have been one of them to get this chance. But I was not that unlucky either. Nobody was agreeing to it and so I get to show my keen interest on going to Pune. Manager agreed for it and we were packing our bags to go back to Pune. So another lesson that you never know if things are turning right for you or can actually stop you from being exposed to other opportunities. You just need to be optimistic and satisfied with what you got. It happened multiple times with me in my years to come which will prove this again and again.
In End I was happy that I am going back to Pune. I was optimistic that my short trip, could possibly turn into a permanent location for me and I would get what I was desiring 2 month ago. Happy for time being :)...

Training in a Sofware Giant

noreply@blogger.com (Hemant Kumar) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:28:00 +0000

Jan 2003 - I joined my dream company in software industry. Very excited and a lot of plans to work on for future.
First attack came in form of another training in which you need to again study for few months. It was important, required and very useful but still..studying again.. Ok.. go over with it. It was quite fun as luckily it was not a whole day classroom sessions type and there was much hands on a real PC, so I actually get to do what I really wanted. Also it gave everyone a chance to look into different perspectives as you would be working as a group and so team work was also being mixed with our behaviour without any explicit effort. Getting some sessions from real programmers was very helpful in directly relating training to a practical scenario.

I learnt a very good lesson that the basics of programming is the only thing one need to know and picking up syntax can be done in a short span and you can become good in any programming language. Still for making an impact like an expert will take time as you then need to go into intricacies of that particular programming language and see how actually it works at memory label. For this again you need to be good and clear about how a computer machine works to produce output from your program. All part of our job..so it is just not 1 and 0, it has a hell lot of other things.
One should not just try to become expert in syntax using which he can understand already written program fast and code fast. But one should also try to see how actually it can be done in a different way and what are the differences in doing in each way. That is how a programmer will go into performance and non-functional part of programming which is many times missed by a typical programmer. It is just not the system which should take care of non-functional features, but also the way how program is written will decide and create an impression for a programmer. So future coders.. keep this in mind while coding next time :).
Also I learnt a very good lesson in my final test. Even if you know how to write a code, you are not as good as a programmer who knows from where to copy/paste. It sound funny and I know many of you will be against me, but in this industry what actually matters? Output, right? So if a person knows from where to copy/paste he already know what piece of code is required. And by knowing the location from where to pick it only speeds up his work. So producing a similar code and in faster time is always better. That's why Copy/Paste is a accepted mantra for software development. No shame about it and it is actually a progress as you can dramatically increase your productivity if you get expert in this capability. Keeping a good repository of generic code snippet also helps in this quality of yours while increasing your knowledge level. Try it, it is worth much more that you think :):).

Second Year in Gujarat

noreply@blogger.com (Hemant Kumar) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:55:00 +0000

Year 2001 - After completion of one year training, which actually not only improved me in my knowledge about physics (which is related to work) but also made me handle some of real project to start on research, I was ready. I was ready to take a responsibility for making something work and putting my head and body till it works.
As I was interested in computers, i took every opportunity to do a hands on if it can be done on a PC. Then it is a analysis program in Fortran or simple graphical design in Auto-CAD everything was fun to me. I could spend hours trying many things to get output in different ways. But this was not the only life at work. I had to do some of field jobs and play with tools, electricity etc to make my living.. Though it sounds boring but it was actually not. if you combine that PC work and this field roaming together, you actually have a total fun of life infront of you. What else you want?
Things doesn't stay same as you want. Slowly a routine work get to you and you start looking for other fun in your life. I had a PC at home where I connected a TV tuner to watch cable. That was the time pass for me at home. Living in Ahmadabad it was going great till that horrible happened in 2002. It was Godhra tragedy of Gujarat which disturbed almost every person even though if he doesn't care a bit about any religion.
I too not feeling safe, shifted to nearby city Gandhinagar where things were better from safety point. Got a good home 1BHK at 1st floor. As time passed things got normal and again started in their daily life. Godhra was past and everybody wanted to forget it as a bad dream. With me getting more involved in R&D work, reality started getting to me that it was not actually the type of work which a software engg. will like to do. I wanted a full time thinking in terms of logic and application while R&D is a mixture of regular work with typical office paper processes. Na.. that's not for me.
Software industry had also started hiring as dot com bubble burst was over and IT industry has matured to keep its pace in a better, careful way. I also ran to catch on this again started train to get my seat and vola... I got one :). I got selected in one of top Indian software company. It was a very good start for another journey..
I quit my job in Jan 2003 to join my ultimate aim (or so you can say at that time). I joined my dream IT company in same month which you will see in my next post onward. See you there :)

My Time in Gujarat

noreply@blogger.com (Hemant Kumar) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Year 2000 - I have completed my BTech, quit MTech and now preparing myself for work (refer my prior posts for BTech and MTech journey).

It is an R&D centre with my post being an Scientist. Wow! I will become one of those nerds who looks like alien to normal public.. it was both exciting and a bit apprehensive. Anyway starting one year is going to be same where we (myself and other who joined with me) would be acquainted with facilities and groom on basic knowledge required to align our effort to final objective of this R&D.

I learned first lesson of my job that thereis not only a single objective but expections of producing byproducts which will come out of the main process. Though these will not be useful for main purpose, these can be utilized for sustainance. Heavy words? Huh! but that is the reality and actually it is quite interesting, isn't it.

Anyway, It was fun clubbed with hard work of study (which I hated and thats why I had left MTech,IIT) we did for one year. We were given hostel rooms for one year to ease our mind from accomodation and food problems. In that time period we saw ourselves maturing as a professional, understand politics in job place, seeing opportunity and making long plans to achieve it etc. We also enjoyed Ahmedabad's pani-puri, sandwich, Drive-in theater where we would go to see a movie and run for a quick Dosa or Dabeli in interval before the movie starts. Most of the time we would be coming back with Dabeli in hand watching movie while walking on the way back and search for a raised hand of one of friend for identifying our seat. What a life!

We saw ourselves changing, our will going strong and even earth shaking. Literally it was shaking as it was an earthquake responsible for it. It was a bitter truth of life where we realized that nothing is everlasting. Things can change over a night. People can fear their own house which they have taken and decorated with all their love. Also people comes together forgetting any differences to help each other when needed. That is humanity, that is life!

Completed one year of studywhich gave us a lot more than just a bookish knowledge. We learned how to live our life. Now it was time to again go out and establish on our own our daily life, bread and butter. I am not talkign about earning money, we have our job we are not kicked out or quite but managing after office or before office is also a challenge in life. You should have a good locality to live in, all utensils to cook food and most important of it - you should know how to cook. At least I was having some hand on for that, so here we go - getting more close to real life!

I would cover my life while actually working in a job as scientist in next post. Give me your comments on how did you like it till now.

Some time in IIT

noreply@blogger.com (Hemant Kumar) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:54:00 +0000

I joined IIT with a very high expectation. Most of it was true but not everything is perfect or you can also say – there is no end to human desire. It looked like all fun and stretch to the limit atmosphere in there. When you are studying, do it very hard and when not, enjoy the life to fullest. Enjoyment is also with a purpose to develop your extracurricular abilities. So actually there is no time for simple plain rest. You will have difficult time surviving if that is one thing you want in your IIT life.

Anyway my term in there didn’t last long as more study for me was not coming in line of my plan. I wanted to enter in software while doing a higher study in non-IT field is just a waste of time. So I jumped to my first chance of coming out of it and joined a regular 9-6 job in Gujarat. I am slowly moving away from home (from UP).

Saying goodbye to IIT was not taken as a reflection of sound mindJ. Obviously who will think of quitting IIT for a normal Govt job in India? Ya, if you have an IIT degree and doing this, you are great, but without that if saying IIT is not for me – you are a fool or could not get it. Don’t know which one of those I was. (I leave it to you to decide).

It was exciting to think about living as a working man. All things which will change from being a student to an independent person….I just could not stop doing a planning for my future…

Final Year in College

noreply@blogger.com (Hemant Kumar) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:38:00 +0000

Year 1999. Y2K is hot in air. just talking with friends
Software industry is having a lot of changes. Both speculations are in market. Y2K is being seen as a big problem which might wash off the IT being a risk business, or, it might create a new era where old code will go away and a lot of people are required to create new code, Wow that would be great...
Few months later ---------
Bad luck, Dot com bubble busted and IT industry has stopped hiring people. Friends, who got selected in Campus, have received letter of delay in their joining. I am in non-IT branch. I was too much interested in computer and so didn't try much in core companies. Now what would happen. Does real world change so fast? It is a hard reality.
-Hey! a new company is coming.
-Which one?
-Some NITI (don't remember the name).
-What?
-Ya, it gives coaching for selection in IIT.
-(If I can teach that why would I be in IET? Anyway lets try)..Great, you are sitting for it?
-Ya, sure. Why not? What else I have?
(none in our group was able to get a job from Campus, though we were in top 10, sometime study sucks :( )
One week later -----
I got selected in NITI. Didn't wanted to join so went on for interview contest for one month. I traveled to Bombay, Ahemedabad for trying my luck in few govt and pub sector companies and for one MBA in Economics.
I got selected for M.Tech in IIT. Fine if no job then M.Tech. IIT has its name. Once completed I will sure have a good job in hand. Till then - Study more. I was having a good grades in my batch, I need to show same performance going forward. Let's see if I could match other IITians for it.

Lessons learnt -
Diversify your interests and choices. If you stuck to only one thing, it might turn you into failure.

A Poor Softwar Guy

noreply@blogger.com (Hemant Kumar) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:22:00 +0000

Software people are making a good part of world population. Though they are very few who actually love computer, numbers are increasing day by day and even normal public has started taking computers as integrated part of life.

So just thought of starting a blog where I can put a typical life as it goes for a software person. How he started his journey in this world, what all steps he climbed, what all life he has faced..and much more. It might become a mirror for many people around the world..

As I have already passed many years of my this life, I will back track a bit to cover till now and then start on putting important turns which can be humourous or may be good piece of advice..

PS: I might not be covering all facts and whatever information provided in this blog is just for making a good reading for people. I don't intend to disclose any information about facilities, companies where I worked which are not suppose to be told. I will take care not to do it but if it happens it would be totally unintentional. I might change a few things to hide these type of details and you should not take this content as an actual real life for any person.