On coding and Debugging

It's such a pain to ship my code -
It runs very well in the debug mode.
But when I give a demo and hope to make a splash,
All it does is throw up a crash.
And the customer consigns it to the trash!


* This one's from the archives (Sep 2010) .... thought of sharing the few things I have written in this long absence, on the blog. Will post more over time ...

Down the Memory Lane - X

One good turn ...

My father worked for a manufacturing unit of an industrial house, and the company had a residential colony for its staff, which was something of a mini-city. The (single-storey) houses  were called as “quarters” (Back then I didn’t give much thought to it, now it seems rather funny to me).

At one time, our house was next to the one allotted to the colony doctor. He used to play bhajans every morning, and it amused me no end to listen him playing this one (by kavi Pradeep):
“Doosro.n ka dukhda door karne wale, tere dukh door kare.nge Ram!”
[You, who alleviate the pain of others, your pain will be alleviated by God]

Parody time

Sharing a very beautiful and poignant poem by Gulzaar ...

Subah subah ek khwaab ki dastak per
darwaza khola, Dekha,
sarhad ke us paar se kuch mehmaan aaye hai.n

Aankho.n se manoos thay saare,
Chehre saare sune sunaaye
Paao.n dhoye, haath dhulaaye,
Aa.ngan mei.n aasan lagwaaye,
Aur tandoor pe makki ke kuch mote mote rot pakaaye

Potli mei.n mehmaan mere
pichle saalo.n ki faslo.n ka gur laye thay

Aankh khuli to dekha ghar mien koi nahin tha,
Haath laga kar dekha to tandoor abhi tak bujha nahin tha,
Aur ho.ntho.n per meethe gur ka zaiqa ab tak chipak raha tha,

Khwab tha shayad,
Khwab hi hoga,
Sarhad per kal raat suna hai chali thi goli,
Sarhad per kal raat suna hai kuch khwabon ka khoon hua hai.

***

But does this all matter to a nerdy software engineer? All s/he cares about are awards and bonus ...
With due apologies to Gulzar sahib ...

Subah subah login ki dastak par
mailbox khola, dekha
corridor end wale room se kuch mails aaye hain. (1)

Requirement se P0 the saare! (2)
Issues saare sune - sunaye
Meeting bulaayee presentations dikhaye
Brainstorming sessions karwaye
Aur StageGate ke template mein kuch mote mote docs banaye. (3)

Attachment mein mails mere
pichle release ke project ka award laye the

Aankh khuli to dekha award kahin nahin tha
Test chala kar dekha to fix abhi tak chala nahin tha
Aur hothon par nightout ki coffee ka swaad ab tak bidak raha tha

EPS kam tha shayad (4)
Bonus nahin milega
Samandar paar kal raat suna hai deal huii thii
Samandar paar kal raat suna hai ek aur acquisition hua hai. (5)

reference:
(1) Corridor end wala room - the room at the end of the corridor, which belongs to my manager
(2) P0 - The highest priority customer requirement
(3) Stagegate - A specific (fussy) format in which we are required to write our functional specifications
(4) EPS - Earning per share - which determines the half-yearly bonus
(5) When a company acquires another, its share price typically falls, causing employee bonus to be cut back


PS: Apologies to the readers who do not know hindi, but this is a case where i cant provide a meaningful translation for either the original or the parody ...

Down the Memory Lane - VIII

Try this for Fiction!


Yesterday, I was talking to a senior colleague R, who pulls my leg quite often. During the conversation, he kidded me about demanding a piece of office equipment ...

R: Go and tell GD that the only thing you need in life is a US-connect+caller-id extension phone, rest everything in this world is going great!

Me: I have no great wish for one [and added as a good measure] Only few days back N concluded that I do not crave for any materialistic thing in this world.

R: [laughs] N must be really happy.

Me: Well, I don't about happy, but yes, it is true, that I am not crazy about anything. Perhaps the only thing I am really fond of is books.

R: [dramatically brightened up] Is this really so? [looks around at the technical documentation lying around] I will give all you these conference proceedings, this techinical literature, these publications, when I leave. You can read them with pleasure!

Me: Hold on! Let me clarify! When I meant I like books, I meant FICTION.

R: So?? Who said all of this stuff is for real? They say, do it in this manner, this works great in this way - it is all actually Fiction!

Me: [straightfaced] It is not fiction. It is FANTASY.

Farewell Song

This is a short poem I wrote for the farewell of a colleague. For those who missed it earlier, here is the context.

We've been used to seeing him around, forever
Never thought we'll have to see him leave
Not just days, but years to remember
That it's a thing of past, is hard to believe

From noon to night, him you can catch
Doing the rounds with the dreaded list in hand
His passion for "rightness" is hard to match
In "healthy discussion" with him you can hours spend

A great sense of humor, a deadpan wit
He'll not let you get bored the slightest bit
He has driven a car with open driver's door
We heard no-one can beat him on dance floor
On these things and more, we shall dwell
Long after we've wished him a fond farewell

Law abets law-breaking

My enthusiasm at having clicked a "breaking-news" kind of pic was kind of dampened - all of the people to whom I showed this pic told me as a matter-of-fact that this was no big deal!!

The effect of company

One of the comments on one of my recent posts reminded me of this sher [came across it on the net, with no credits].

It describes the effect of posting policemen on security duty in kavi-sammelan's [poetry recitals]:

Rafta rafta har police-wale ko shayar kar diya
Mehfil-e-sher-o-sukhan mei.n bhej kar sarkaar ne
Ek kaidi subah ko faansi lagaa kar mar gayaa
Raat bhar ghazalei.n sunaayi.n usko thaanedaar ne

[Gradually every policeman became a poet
by getting posted at poetry recitals
A prisoner committed suicide in the morning
The sentry recited poems to him the entire night]

Down the memory lane - VII

How many neurons ?

The first year of my engineering, we studied generic courses, not specific to respective departments. In the first class in the second year, one enthusiastic teacher sought to introduce the naive students in front of him to the world of computers, and parallel processing. To give a perspective on processing, he asked the class, "How many neurons does a human brain have ?". The entire class of 60 remained silent [whether out of ignorance or intimidation, I do not know]. The teacher repeated the question. The class stayed mum. And then, the only 'surd' in our class, a certain D.S., raised his hands, stood up confidently, and said, "Sir, four". The whole class roared with laughter when the teacher cited the correct answer.
After the class, we exclaimed, "Sardar ne apne gin kar bata diye" [D.S. counted his own and gave the answer!!]
The story soon spread amongst the entire batch, and whosoever heard it laughed his head off. D.S. was a very soft-spoken, and likeable fellow; but for the rest of the three years we teased him no end about this incident.

P.S. I have not quoted the correct answer here on purpose. I challenge you to answer it! With no help from google!! [or from D.S., for that matter!!!] :-)

Pearls of wisdom

One of my colleagues has a daughter who is quite naughty and quite smart. This colleague recently became the proud father of twin boys. Shortly after, his daughter came up to him and said, "Papa, mai.n aapko bahut tang karti hoon na. Socho, jab main aur mere dono.n bhai milkar aapko tang karenge to aapkaa kya haal hoga" [Papa, I do trouble you a lot. Just think, when I and my two brothers get together and trouble you, what will become of you].
I couldn't stop laughing at the child's words, but the father could just smile ruefully!!


And seen on the rear wind-screen of a car -
Speed on Brother
Hell ain't full yet!

Zaroorat (Necessity)

I just found JV's blog, who has posted the ghazal : Gulshan ki faqat phoolon se nahin, kaanton se bhi zeenat hoti hai.
Undoubtedly, it is a very beautiful ghazal, with amazing lyrics, and beautifully sung by Jagjit Singh.

I just want to bring to notice the same thing, in the light of my day-to-day work ....

Product ki faqat features se nahin errors se bhi zeenat hoti hai
Chalne ke liye software ko bug ki bhi zaroorat hoti hai

Ai Project leader poochta hai tu ek PCR ka status
Yahan roz crashes milate hain yahan roz PCR hoti hai

AE ne commitment maangi hai late de na sakoon date de na sakoon
Delay par customer maarega date doon to musibat hoti hai

Jo likh de sare comments code mein uski knowledge bemani hai
Jise lay-off na kar sake manager us developer ki kiimat hoti hai

Glossary:
Bug: A mistake in software code
PCR: Product Change Request (Bug/Error report from customer)
AE: Application Engineer (Person who reports customers' problems to development team)

Down the memory lane - VI

The Physics Lab Mishap

Many of you who have studied physics in school in higher classes might remember performing the frequency measurement experiments. One of these was the one where we used to measure the frequency of a tuning fork. The tuning fork was striken against a rubber pad, due to which its prongs started vibrating. The fork was then placed on the resonance box, which was essentially a hollow wooden box, to calculate the resonant frequency.

In one lab class, our class was required to carry out this experiment. The teacher left the class for a few minutes, and with him vanished all the sincerity of the students (who tried to have fun while those precious few minutes lasted). One guy, G, came up to me and put his tuning fork over my head, and teased me – “See, the fork is resonating – your head is empty”. I got furious with him, and ran after him with my equipment. The teacher chose this particular moment to return to the class, and was greeted with this scene (must have looked hilarious to him – me, all of 5 feet, tuning fork in hand, chasing G who stood almost 6 feet tall). He asked me (poor, poor me – completely unaware that he was back) in all seriousness – “Didn’t you get a rubber pad, that you are trying to strike your tuning fork against G ?”

I think the whole classed rolled in laughter; I do not remember their reaction – I was so embarrassed that I wished I could just vanish beneath the ground. But now, it is one of those memories that do not fail to bring a smile on my face.

Down the memory lane - V

It's not a bug

Let me start off by a small clarification for the people who are not so conversant with the software programming terminology - a 'Bug' refers to an error in software code.

There is a certain expert in our field, whose mails/articles are widely followed in our company. In the signature of his e-mails, he used to include this quote (indicating the philosophy usually adopted by software companies) - "It's not a bug, it's a feature".

When I had just joined the company, and was relatively very young in my team, I used to play pranks on my TL (team-lead). One of my favorite ones was to take any insect, dead or alive, found in our seating area, to the TL and tell him - "Sir, see, I found a Bug!!" One day the TL happened to see a mouse running around (no-one still believes it can happen in a high-tech software office!), and called out to me - "You are so adept at catching bugs; go, catch this one". I promptly corrected him, in all seriousness, and a self-righteous manner - "It's not a bug, it's a Creature !"