Sankara

Immigration Reform: Stop Ejecting the Brightest Minds From America

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:40:34 -0800

That’s the current state of immigration in the US. I’ll keep my experience for another post but if I could summarize it in one word it would be “nightmare”. The current process rewards the larger companies unfairly over smaller ones. It’s really easy to immigrate with the L visas used by MNCs but startups suffer as the H visas are very hard to get.

sequoiacapital:

Let’s hope Congress does not flinch as it begins the debate about immigration reform because the future is passing through security – in the wrong direction. It leaves the United States on every departing airplane carrying a foreign born student who has graduated from an American university with an advanced degree in the sciences, technology, engineering and math. The majority of these people want to stay in the United States but because of existing immigration laws, they have no choice but to leave.

In Silicon Valley, which has always been blind to any attribute other than ability, everyone knows that the remarkable achievements of the foreign born have led to the formation of companies such as Google, Intel, Sun Microsystems, nVidia, Yahoo! PayPal and scores of others that are less well known. Of the last eleven early stage companies that have allied themselves with Sequoia Capital, seven have had immigrants among their founding lineup. This is not a sudden or recent phenomenon; it has been the leitmotif of our business since the 1970s. However, the number of startups would be even higher if we weren’t ejecting foreign-born students and if we welcomed their contemporaries who have been educated overseas. Today, it is impossible to satisfy Silicon Valley’s appetite for engineers and scientists with people born in America.

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Apple vs Samsung and the issue of trivial patents

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 21:32:00 -0700

Samsung definitely copied a lot of stuff but the method and techniques used to bring it down is outright scary for innovation and sets a very bad precedent.

One should look at how the steam engine came to be - http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blsteamengine.htm - to understand how small but different ways of implementing the same stuff brought about a whole revolution. A generic patent in the likes of - “a machine operated by steam” - would have held the world backward by a century.

I wonder what phones were used by the jurors. I know, as a matter of fact, that anyone who has used an Apple product falls in love with that brand forever and refuse to consider/respect alternatives. It would be hard for the jurors to resist punishing Samsung for something they see as an innovation that is “so great”.India, among a few things done very good, has the right policy on patent. One of the main reasons generics drugs and some of the life saving drugs are cheaper here can be credited to those good policies. Even that is threatened by the US and some drug manufacturing companies in the WTC.

Update: Juror responds to criticism. He doesn’t use an iPhone :) but that doesn’t change the fact that the whole thing only harms innovation.

Been there, done that!

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 07:42:00 -0700

So many social networks have come and gone. I have tried almost everything. Orkut, Yahoo 360 (anyone remember it?), MySpace (yeah I had a profile there too), hi5 and so many others I signed up but never used. Orkut was the first social network I was serious about and it was also the one that brought a lot of my friends together; long lost school friends esp. However, it was love at first sight when I saw FB. I instantly moved away from Orkut. But it took more than a year before the exodus from Orkut completed and it’s three years since then and I have finally deleted my Orkut profile.

FB kind of had everything perfect, initially. Photos, sharing links, everything just worked. Not to mention, the interface was pretty and usable. So it wasn’t much of a question for me to move away from Orkut. But as the exodus started, the feeds started getting polluted. Mafia wars and Farmville while attracted people towards FB also started freaking me out. There was an app request every few mins and the feed was congested. FB did act fast, they enabled features to hide posts by user and by applications. It helped. People got mature too. Discussions were getting better and things started improving. And then the mass exodus happened. All of sudden everyone was on FB. Won’t you be freaked if a broker who helped you find a house 5 years back and your office account came up as suggestions. Oh and there are a few friends who deleted their FB accounts because their aunts signed up on FB too ;).

To add to that, privacy was just namesake from day one. (How many people realise that if you liked a friends photo, the entire album was instantly visible to your friends; not just the original poster’s friends?). Totally freaky. I had to remove a bunch of photos and untag a lot people. I also refrained from liking or commenting on personal photos. Of course, the original poster could have enabled tighter controls, but the interface was clumsy and unusable. To sum it up, FB took the evil route to get everyone on board and keep them “entertained” (same route as orkut of course). Privacy aside, the chatter was also too much. FB’s ‘Top News’ only aggravated the problem.

And then came Google+. As of today it has the perfect balance of privacy and sharing. The best part is twitter like public sharing but unlike twitter only select posts can be made public. Oh, what a boon! Want to share your photos with only your friends, done! Fun birthday pics at office to be shared with your work friends, done! It doesn’t freak me out anymore to post my thoughts freely or share my photos! I’m listing down a comprehensive set of features where Google+ shines towards the end.

The best part however is that there is no concept of “friend”. It’s not a mutual link anymore. The positive side is that you don’t have to be freaked out if someone totally random sends you a friend request. Just happily let them follow you; there is no condition that you have to follow them back or give them access to all your personal photos. (And a disclaimer, all features that I mentioned above are there in FB too. For example, you can follow someone’s public posts. Try finding out how to do it :))

But is everyone you want on Google+? Nope. Will they move anytime soon? Nope. Change is inevitable but change is slow and almost everyone uniformly resist change. So yes, it’s going to be another long year of wait before most people move to Google+. But I’m confident that they will eventually.

Features I love about Google+

Concept of circles (aka friend list) from the ground up. As in real life, friends circles don’t overlap anymore.
Privacy.
Follow anyone you want. I now follow a lot of people from Robert Scoble, Tim O’Reilly, Linus Torvalds to Muhammad Yunus and there are some really amazing photographers like Ben Canales and Trey Ratcliff. I don’t have to say it; these guys are never going to accept my FB friend request ;)
Stream – Filter by circle. Want to see your friends posts alone? Quite easy.
Sparks – This is not one of the widely popular features yet but one that has tremendous potential. Makes it really easy to follow topics of choice.
Hangouts – I can’t use it much as most of my friends are not there in G+ yet and that’s the only reason it is way down below. But unarguably this is the best feature of Google+. Group video chat, who thought that would be so easy.
Photos – I have long been a fan of Picasa and Picasa Web and it paid off well. (Effectively) I now have unlimited storage for my photos, the interface is one of the best, easy but controlled sharing. Everything is super good.
Huddle – This is a mobile app only feature which has a very good potential to dislodge BlackBerry messenger, whatsapp, Kik and the likes.
SEO – Oh well, I don’t personally like it so much but businesses are going to love it.

My opinion – Google+ has the best ability to keep FB on its toes and it’s good. Competition is good.

Walden International invests $6M in BankBazaar

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:10:00 -0700

As some of your would already know, BankBazaar received a $6M investment from Walden International, a leading Global Venture Capital firm. This is going to be used to scale-up very rapidly over the coming year. Refer below for the coverage in various leading blogs and newspapers. On a related note: we are trying to expand and are looking for developers. If you know someone who would fit, please do refer.

Economic Times Coverage of the Investment is below:

————————————————————————————————————————–

Some Other News Coverage Of The Investment:

About Walden International

WI is a leading international venture capital firm that provides investors access to cross-border, IT opportunities with the advantage of an unrivaled Pan Asia network since 1987. The firm’s funds total over US$1.9 billion in committed capital. WI’s investments include Creative Technology (SGX: CREAF SP), MindTree Ltd (BSE: MTCL IN), SINA (NASDAQ: SINA), Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (NYSE: SMI and HKSE: 0981.HK), WebEx (acquired by Cisco). For more information, please visit www.waldenintl.com.

Resisting the resistance to change

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 07:48:00 -0800

Everyone would have faced this hurdle some time or the other. It is difficult to change; it’s even more difficult to change others. Be it changing your favourite shell, IDE, version control system, release process …etc. or in the real world - changing city, habits… name anything. Here is a simple list of the arguments put forward against change and what I typically feel about them.

Argument: I’m used to X. I’m comfortable with X. Why should I change?

Fact: In most cases it’s nothing but pure laziness. Experimentation; have an open mind and be ready to try out things without any prejudice. Make it a fun cool thing to do and enjoy yourself. The flip side is that you might end up, or perceive as, wasting your time once in a while. I’m sure most people can easily identify those that aren’t worth a single unit of their time and push it out. Anything above that is definitely a learning. If not switching/changing your favourite, you’ll most likely get an idea of what features are good in your favourite and that’s an important and necessary condition to becoming an expert.

Argument: I’m an expert at X and I don’t want to learn Y Fact: Most cases you would have falsely assumed yourself to be an expert. If you are reasonably expert at X you would have by now realised what is good and more importantly what is bad with X. Only knowing the deficiencies and shortcomings of your favourite fully qualifies you to be an expert. (The real gurus would have not just identified the issues but would have also fixed them. They are people who can be the change.)

When Y comes along claiming it’s better at features a, b, c ..etc. of X the real expert would quickly realise that Y is what they have been waiting for and would jump ship. It’s not that easy to jump or switch habits of course, I’ll come to that. Argument: What if the alternative is actually not as useful to me as it seems? Blah, Blah, Blah …etc.

Fact: Fear of change. People use shallow arguments when they are afraid of change. This is actually the biggest problem of all. Most people I have worked with in my past or present company are some of the brilliant minds I have ever met. Most of them are experts in what they do and very clearly understand their craft. These brilliant people in most cases vaguely know that the new (not as in shiny new; new to you, new to me) cool stuff is actually not just cool but also better than what they currently use. A couple of my personal experiences are with Eclipse vs. IDEA and SVN vs. Git. But they won’t just be ready to try out the suggestion.
How to overcome this fear? There is no straightforward answer. I’m no psychologist ; but I would say face it head on. Just go try it out. What is there to lose anyway. Try it in something minor, something with limited scope but go try it out.

Argument: It’s so hard and painstaking to switch.Fact: Yes, it requires determination.

Once you are convinced that you are better off with the alternative it boils down to determination. When that determination is achieved it’s about systematically learning the new stuff or unlearning the old stuff. Your determination will guide you through the rest. Suggested reading: ’Who moved my cheese?’

Apple's war on Amazon

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:06:50 -0800

Ref: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245692 - Discussion on Apple rejecting Readability app from the AppStore.

A commenter mentioned it’s a war on Amazon. True. It is Apple’s war on Amazon. As such Amazon stands tall in customer perception and satisfaction. If Apple removes Kindle app from Appstore that might very well backfire. But would it be enough to disrupt the iOS ecosystem? Will people ever realise the autocratic rules of Apple around the iOS devices? Will there be a regulation to get rid of such ridiculous practices that try to suck the last penny out? Will users’ interest prevail over monetization?

Following one's heart

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:29:45 -0800

One of my brother’s friend recently became a Lieutenant in the Indian Army. He is now with one of the elite forces and has been posted in one of the most strategic locations. He didn’t get there overnight. I know him from 2002. He has always talked about the country and was very passionate about joining the Army. Coming to the point; he is one of those rare breed of people who had a clear aim and a strong mind to follow their heart. Of course not many agreed with him. In fact very few actually believed he would get there. He is now a very proud man and very happy doing what he does. Even after 30-40 years I’m pretty sure he would be happy with his decision and his accomplishment. And now for all of those who don’t have a clear goal in life; who don’t know what they want; who just follow the crowd; who are just after the money, good luck. And those who know what you are doing; the next time someone asks why aren’t you becoming a <add-a-fancy-title-here>, show them the middle finger.

Facebook Outage

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:11:00 -0700

I’m pretty sure everyone’s aware of the outage that happened at Facebook. There is a very good hypothesis on what could have happened in the High Scalability blog. One of the very basic things I learned with working on a distributed system is “if something is bad, don’t make it worse”. Almost any retry mechanism I think of these days would be an exponential backoff solution (right, it all goes back to the basics of networking). Retries are not bad by virtue. What I’m puzzled is how could someone dealing with things at the scale of Facebook didn’t think about this basic stuff? Or is the real issue different from the hypothesis?

Open source as applicable to web applications

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:58:00 -0700

I have always pondered on the applicability of the “freedom movement” or FOSS for webapps like Gmail. An article (link obtained from the footnote of open source vs free software by RMS himself) crisply defines some of the salient points of free software:

Users are free to use the program for any purpose.
Users are free to examine the source code to see how it works.
Users are free to distribute the program to others.
Users are free to improve the program.

This definition uses the word “program” but I believe web applications do qualify as programs; after all, Gmail is a web application aka program (hosted by google) that helps you send, receive and manage emails, isn’t it? Now let me apply the logic to Gmail and try and understand if it qualifies as free.

There are restrictions on how you use Gmail as defined by their terms of service.
1. 5.2 You agree to use the Services only for purposes that are permitted by (a) the Terms
Don’t even think about it.
Let’s exclude this for the moment.
If greasemonkey scripts are considered improvements to the program may be yes. But I doubt google’s TOS would explicitly allow modifications to even the user interface of Gmail by using a thirdparty browser extension.

Almost every web-application would fail to qualify the definition of “free” software. At least a MS Word document is my property; my Facebook profile is not. I have absolutely no control on if or whether I would be able to export my Facebook profile. Effectively instead of just me, now my data is locked in too. But I rarely hear FOSS enthusiasts to be critical of it. Stumbled upon a Sep 2008 interview with RMS in The Guardian; here is what RMS has to say about web application:

“One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control,” he said. “It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenceless. You’re putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.”

That quote was specifically on cloud computing; I might be wrong but I guess it would extend to other webservices as well. I wasn’t able to locate much about the applicability of FOSS for webservices nor did I see anyone criticize these webservices. FOSS.in is in twitter afterall (@fossdotin).

I’m seriously not an expert in the area of FOSS and definitely not a lawyer to interpret the intricacies of the various licenses and TOCs. But I do believe that “free as in speech” simply cannot apply to most web applications and web services. I am not a believer by any measure (I do use proprietary software); but I’m interested in understanding how the free software movement applies to the web of today which has evolved so much to even make an OS “almost redundant” (think Chrome OS).

1986 Bill Gates Interview

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 05:56:00 -0700

Chanced upon a Bill Gates interview back in 1986. It’s very interesting to see his view points on various things - from programming/programmers to mathematics to CD ROM. Bill Gates has suggested a few technologies to come to the fore front; a few have succeeded, a lot haven’t.

Original interview: http://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/bill-gates-1986/

Excerpts (more of notes to self than anything else):

Great programmers are critical to create software products. But we don’t believe in a prima donna approach, where just because somebody’s good we let him not comment his code, or not communicate with other people, or impose his beliefs on everyone else.

At certain levels we’ve got business managers, but we don’t have non-programmers really managing programming projects.

… but I think you’d find that the programmers who sit down and code at the beginning are only using that as a scratch pad. It’s what’s going on in their heads that’s most important.

Little inefficiencies can slip into the program along the way, and if you want to really feel good about it, you’ve got to maintain the thought that you’re not going to let that stuff creep in. …. I’d go back and recode other people’s sections of code, without making any dramatic improvement. That bothers people when you go in and do that, but sometimes you just feel like you have to do it.

Excerpts:

Some people just jump in and start coding, and others think it all through before they sit down, but I think you’d find that the programmers who sit down and code at the beginning are only using that as a scratch pad. It’s what’s going on in their heads that’s most important.

Well, first of all, the programming team has got to be made up of people who respect each other, because the work is really intimate; it’s like being in the same play together. So much judgment and creativity goes into a programming project. Some of the great programmers can’t work on teams; they just like to work on their own. But I think there’s an element of greatness that comes in learning how to work with other people and teach them.

Things have changed from what used to be the case with BASIC but high level languages haven’t really gone any far on this one:

Software tools are getting so much better. It is possible that we will eventually be able to take just specifications and a description of what the machine is efficient at, and then have some super high-level compiler do a lot of the work that programmers do now.

Its like people who play cress. When you’re really into playing chess, it’s easy to memorize every move in ten chess games, because you’re involved in it. Other people look at that recall in chess players, or in programmers, and they think it’s like some freak show. But it’s completely natural.

I still think that one of the finest tests of programming ability is to hand the programmer about 30 pages of code and see how quickly he can read through and understand it.

INTERVIEWER: Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer?

GATES: No, the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating system.

If you ever talk to a great programmer, you’ll find he knows his tools like an artist knows his paintbrushes.

I doubt this ever took off to such a large scale. I keep hearing one or two people talk about rule-based programming but that’s about it:

What’s going to really be different is rule-based programming. It’s different, because instead of just writing the program and saying: “If this happens, do this and if this happens, do this,” which is the way programs work now, you’ll write rules, and then you have this little reasoning engine that looks at the current set of facts and the rules. Then it tries to derive new facts and act appropriately.

This is the master piece:

Our goals are very simple. We’re going to create the software that puts a computer on every desk and in every home.

And then there’s a whole lot of discussion about CD ROM - funny to read it now.

We really believe we’re going to have CD ROM machines in every car and in every house. And when you go to a new area of the country, you’re going to stick that little disk in there and pan around and have it show you routes, and have it tell you about points of interest.

Grass root enterprise indeed!

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 23:42:00 -0700

What Sony Ericsson service said would take one week, total data wipe out and Rs. 12K to replace the entire board and resurrect my K790i was done by a vendor in a 2.5ft wd shop in Richie Street in 1hr and the phone was restored back to the exact same state before it went dead/dormant for a year.

http://shekharkapur.com/blog/2010/07/a-blackberry-addict-discovers-grassroots…

Paul Graham's Hackers & Painters

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:40:13 -0700

Paul Graham’s Hackers & Painters is a very interesting read for anyone looking to make a living out of programming. Here is an interesting quote:

Great software, likewise, requires a fanatical devotion to beauty. If you look inside good software, you find that parts no one is ever supposed to see are beautiful too. I’m not claiming I write great software, but I know that when it comes to code I behave in a way that would make me eligible for prescription drugs if I approached everyday life the same way. It drives me crazy to see code that’s badly indented, or that uses ugly variable names.

BankBazaar is looking for Superstar Engineers

Wed, 19 May 2010 23:25:00 -0700

Contact Info: Iype Isac (CTO), 98844 12060, careers [at] bankbazaar [dot] com.

Do you know any company which has done the following within a span of 15 months (with a core engineering team of just 10 people)

Built a system which has completely replaced the online acquisition platform of:
- India’s biggest home loan lender
- India’s biggest auto loan lender
- India’s biggest personal loan lender
- India’s biggest credit card issuerWhy would leading portals (MSN, Economic Times) route their entire customer base to us for loan related information?

Why are leading banks asking us to rebuild their internal banking systems using our platforms?The reason: Our superior platform has trumped existing platforms in delivering better results at much lower costs. And what’s behind the platform - a world class team of engineers who have it in their DNA to improve & excel. We are expanding rapidly and are looking for more super stars to join us.

About BankBazaar
BankBazaar.com is a technology centric company providing innovative products/services in the retail banking space. Started by team that built Amazon.com’s online credit card product pioneering in real time credit delivery, our team today is 35 strong with the top online technology specialists from Amazon.com, Microsoft, and Trilogy from universities such as CEG, REC-Trichy, Columbia, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, ISB and other top rung universities. BankBazaar has secured funding in July 2008 and we are showing strong revenue growth month over month. What do we do?
We develop products that power www.bankbazaar.com and online loan/credit-card delivery systems of top Indian banks like HDFC Bank, ING Vysya, ABN AMRO, HDFC LTD and the finance section of popular sites like MSN India, Economic Times. The core work involves building the BankBazaar platform and highly scalable applications on top of it. This includes development of business rule engines, business process automation workflows, highly customizable web site platforms and intelligent credit decisioning and fraud detection systems. In addition, we are extending the usage of the same platform in branch banking and mobile banking.

Why work for BankBazaar?
You will be a part of a small core engineering team that is revolutionizing the banking software/services industry. We maintain a flat organization and an agile work environment. Each engineer carries a lot of ownership and adds tremendous value by working on high impact problems using innovative methods. Being a startup, everyone is exposed to the big picture and gets the opportunity to be a part of the big decisions. We are a fast growing company providing excellent learning and growth opportunities.Want to join us?
We are seeking smart programmers who are gung ho about building large scale systems that are going to have a big impact on millions of customers around the world. These are the skills/qualifications that are preferred:

    * Bachelors or Masters engineering degree from a reputed college
    * Strong grasp of CS fundamentals and excellent problem solving abilities.
    * Experience with hands on coding and independent ownership of software components
    * Advanced knowledge in performance, scalability, enterprise system architecture, and engineering best practices.
    * Web savvy, Experience with Java, PHP, MySQL and JavascriptSend your resumes to careers [at] bankbazaar [dot] com if you are interested and spread the word around :)

Car loan - Challenges

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:07:00 -0700

As some of you might have noticed BankBazaar’s portfolio is growing rapidly. The recent addition is car loan. As with any other business there were various challenges at various stages. First it was convincing the banks that our model is unlike any other lead aggregation model and that it is much cheaper and efficient. As would have known already BankBazaar doesn’t “sell” a loan. A loan application at BankBazaar is highly transparent and intent driven. The user has the option to compare various banks by the single most important parameter, the total cost of a loan, which includes interest rates, taxes and fees; pretty straightforward. In spite of the convenience provided it has never been easy to convince customers. This challenge gets compounded in the case of car loans. The dealer (who gets a significant cut of the loan, btw) hand holds the customer through the loan process. Customers fall for it not realising that the interest rate provided need not be the lowest and there is a lot of bargaining to do to get the best deal. One solution that has currently been put out at BankBazaar in association with HDFC is a discount in interest rate and processing fee. Let’s see how it goes. Do spread the word.

Moving on - Clojure

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 06:00:00 -0800

Until recently, I was a staunch believer in Java; of course, not without reasons. Here is a short list of things I found useful & convenient. Note that this list is as per my expectations as a naïve & novice programmer.

Strong type system meant that I know what is in hand. This resulted in eliminating quite a lot of errors at compile time.
No pointers. This was kind of a shock for me. I had always appreciated the ability to store links especially when it comes to data structures. Once I figured out the trick to live without pointers life was much easier. One more source of errors is eliminated from my code. No more debugging segfaults.
Strong exception system let me anticipate errors and handle them gracefully.
A rather well defined OOP. List all advantages of OOP here. Java did a little *cleanup* of C++. Confusions and those that hamper readability of code like operator overloading and multiple inheritance were removed.
Other strong advantages. A great set of library, platform independence, strong IDE support (of course the above points played a major role here)…etc.

But as you approach “I know what I’m doing” these advantages would rather become sources of frustration. Code would be verbose than required; you feel strangled by the type system and exception system; you would find yourself having to learning a lot of best practises, industry standards, design patterns …etc. to overcome the inherent deficiencies of the language. There are two routes from here

Religiously believe Java (also name x, y and z which are in the same domain as Java) as the best language out there and never realise that you are indeed at a disadvantage.
Learn a more powerful language; a lisp preferably or a modern language like Scala, Erlang or Groovy.

I was introduced to Erlang and Clojure quite a long time ago. But I was in (i). This coupled with the inertia (a fancy term for laziness), resistance to change and the lack of a place to apply my learning meant that I never took that up. If you are in an established company it is highly likely that you could never introduce a new technology. This is definitely not a bad thing. Of course, every company runs for profit and they don’t want you to be a rather irreplaceable resource. This is where working in a startup became an advantage. The list of language and technologies used in my present company goes on and on: Java/J2EE (struts, spring, hibernate, freemarker, ognl, velocity), Groovy/Grails, Python and now the latest introduction Clojure (not to mention other front end technologies) and introducing a new useful technology fitting a particular problem domain was well accepted and was the general norm. Also, I was exposed to these brilliant and thought provoking articles by Paul Graham: Revenge of the Nerds & Succinctness is Power.

I decided to update my toolbox and started learning Clojure. Why Clojure? The reasons are pretty much covered here. My major strong point was that I felt functional programming and lisp are a totally new way of thinking but yet clojure makes them usable in your day to day life. After using clojure for well over 3 months I feel my decision was indeed wise. A direct impact of this is that my Java code is much more succinct and yet readable. The impact was not limited to Java; my entire style of thinking was altered (in a good way). It does help you if you understand the limitations and drawback of the tools/technologies that you use. Functional programming is indeed radical, fancy terms like TDD would be just a way of life. This is a direct advantage of the fact that every function is self-contained and the scope/environment is small and easy to setup. That’s just one example that I felt personally. I definitely feel more satisfied now. Take a look at an example from the book Programming Clojure:

Java code, from the Apache Commons

Compare this to Clojure code

Gurjap Singh Kohli, VP, BankBazaar.com live on CNBC Awaaz

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:50:14 -0800

Gurjap was live on CNBC Awaaz answering various queries about home loans, pre-payment and the process involved.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Review of Zune HD

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:06:00 -0800

(Copied from Crunchgear)

Having used Zune HD for over a month now I thought it would be good to write a review about this unfortunate little device shadowed by market leader iPod. No boring long paragraphs; let me quickly list down the pros and cons.

Cons first:

Missing features & apps: if you had used any recent generation iPod, there is a chance you would miss the following: Alarm clock, Calendar alert & integration with Outlook, tasks & TODOs, apps & games.
One touch pause/play: requires a button press and a screen touch to pause/play; could be an issue outdoors.
Battery life: battery life is really good for music/radio but goes down drastically with Wi-Fi on or apps.
No USB file support: Yup, you cannot use it as a USB drive.

Pros:

OLED screen: excellent in bright environment; enhances battery life. The screen is scratch proof. You would still need a scratch-guard as it’s not really oil/dirt proof. Comes with mutli touch too.
Processor/Graphics: Excellent. Tegra processor has real HPJ. Built-in games would demonstrate this well; no hiccups. Had a chance to compare graphics side by side with an iPod touch; Zune HD wins hands down. As an incidental side-effect you get to watch your HD videos in hyper-quality.
Radio w/ HD: I know iPod nano 5^th generation has brought in radio/FM too. You simply can’t miss the 10+ FM channels if you are in a city like Chennai.
No iTunes: not sure many would agree with me; I hate iTunes to the core. Zune software has a refreshing new look& feel. On a related note, there is no lock in: yes, you can sync with multiple computers with guest sync support. Wireless sync lets you go cordless.
Intuitive interface: for a change MS has made Zune HD really usable. Try it once to appreciate it.
Well built: Well-built and boasts a masculine bold look. I hate the iPod nano esp J.

Other features:

Zune pass: while not a real treat if you are outside US; it is indeed a great deal for music lovers. For $14 you can listen to unlimited songs; better yet you get to download 10 songs as well.
Browser: Zune’s browser is good enough to access emails/twitter. The fact that it’s a variant of the windows mobile browser would show up in heavy sites. Lacks flash though.
Keyboard: Zune’s on-screen touch keyboard is indeed useful. Auto correct feature is really good.
Power-off: You can “power-off” for real in a Zune HD.
Not really an advantage, but I do like the fact that I can automatically exclude and “remove” songs I hate/dislike. It’s usual for me to copy a whole album, listen to all the songs and after two or three plays mark a song as “dislike” in one click. It would eventually be removed in the next sync. I love this feature; helps me free up a lot of space without much effort.

Useful reviews:

Crunch gear review: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/18/review-zune-hd/

Zune HD’s UI: the full tour: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/16/zune-hds-ui-the-full-tour/

Review of the 3D games: http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/11/11/video-checking-out-the-zune-hds-new-3d-games/

Engadget review: http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/17/zune-hd-review/

CNet review: http://reviews.cnet.com/mp3-players/zune-hd-32gb-platinum/4505-6490_7-33665869.html

Should English be used in all Software and OS?

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:12:00 -0800

An article today grabbed my attention today. It brought one nasty aspect of software; language, not the programming one. The article claims it’s important that you use your software and OS in English. The reason specified was very valid and is perfectly practical. But I disagree that everyone should be forced to use English. I’ll list down my view point and “my” opinion on why it is wrong to enforce English as the only language.

The reason as per the article is that a search for an error message might not be futile in your native language. This IMHO is a limitation of the search engine. Search engines should evolve to search by semantics rather than just plain dumb words. And all indications are pointing that each and every search engine is working hard to achieve that goal. I still remember the very first search I did in Yahoo! in the 90s. The results were mostly dumb. We have come a long way from there and we have miles to go indeed. This process can only be accelerated if more and more people start using the web in their native language; the language they feel more comfortable with. Domain names in non-English languages, Unicode as standard encoding format for everything from your source code file to email, more and more blogs and sites in non-English languages, local versions of major sites…etc. indicate we’ll reach there eventually. Asking the whole world to learn English is neither feasible nor acceptable. If information has to reach people who need it the most, language should not be a barrier.

Switch to Safari - Irritants

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:58:00 -0800

Recently switched to Safari to just try it out. Finding it to be good in terms of speed and rendering of sites. But of course not without irritants.

No way to add more search providers – Locking to Google is CRAP! There seem to be workarounds but nothing works for Windows. The preference file is RSA signed. Why the hell would someone do that! Isn’t this anti-competitive?! And btw, I love Bing. It’s yet to be polluted with SEO junk.
No undo closed tab - A problem that I get into very frequently. I’m one of those who close tabs inadvertently. And when the competition has it and as a user I have had a taste of it (including in IE8) why would I want to miss it.
No process isolation - One crappy site, one tab hangs and you lose all your work? Oh come on!
No recent tab order - Again having had the taste I’m missing this.
Address completion is still naive - If you can optimize your algorithm to ignore the beginning “www” why not optimize it a little more search across words.
No private browsing. - There, but!! What’s the point if Google gets my cookie when I have chosen to browse in private! Why the hell did I turn on Private Browsing? To hide history in my browser but expose it to Google? Come on, guys! That’s ridiculous.
280 MB for just 5 tabs in windows is ridiculous. I mean, seriously, not even Intellij Idea requires so much memory.
Missing about:config or similar powerful preferences editor.
Plug-in support - Same problem as IE. But IE is at least popular enough to have the most essential plug-ins.
Clearing private data – Firefox beats everyone else.

My alma-matter after 3.5 years

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:15:00 -0700

I had a chance to visit our college, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, along with Nikhil Verma and Ramanathan. It was quite a memorable experience. To be frank I was pleasantly surprised when my professors were able to identify me after 3.5 years. Had a chance to chat with Ms. Mala, Mrs. MSB, Mrs. Leela, Dr. SSK and Dr. Hemalatha Theyagarajan. A couple of interesting things came up during the discussions

Our department is going down in stature mainly because of poor management credited to one single person which most people reading this blog should be aware of already.
Interaction between students and industry is at a new low. SSK sir suggested that we, alumni, have regular interaction with students.

I’m keeping aside point (1) for the time being, considering that we’ll be getting a new director in a year or so and that there is already steps being taken from within college. Also if point (2) is executed well we’ll get the necessary trust and faith of our director to take up the issue.

Regarding point (2), discussions have already began in closed circles. The plan is to host one interaction session every month. One or two people would go down to college and handle it personally. Dr. SSK has promised that necessary facilities would be taken care of. In our opinion, we could very well find 9/18 people per calendar year. Topics for the sessions are not finalised. In all likelihood speakers will be given liberty in choosing the topic of their choice.

Our college could set an example by hosting an interaction session with industry experts every month. It helps students better prepare for the industry. The ever widening gap between academia and industry could be reduced as much as possible. You can help us by volunteering to speak for one of the sessions and forwarding this to your friends who would be willing to do so.

A few snaps taken at college:

See the full gallery on Posterous