The life and day-to-day travails of a software developer in india.
Ok, folks, end of blogger for me!
Not the end of blogging though. I've moved over my blog to http://sood.net.in/journal. All the old blogger posts have been migrated too.
Also put up a wiki at sood.net.in. Go ahead, visit and update bookmarks :)
See ya all there!
Finally figured out how to upload stuff to my website's ftp server from behind the corporate firewall. All thanx to TransConnect.
So i fix the links in the writings section, update the bookmarks and contacs, fix some speliling mistakes and all that. Not a good idea to post a link here, those in the know will know where to look :-)
And I rented some hosting space from b-one. On recommendation of lurwas from #emacs. Pretty reasonable rates, around $38 annual for 125 MB of webspace and a domain registration. The only thing missing is ability to run cgi-bin scripts (which I wanted for running the MovableType blogging tool).
My previous hosting provider had me paying almost nearly $26 for measly 2 MB of space! And recently they misconfigured the virtual host and it was used by spammers, got blacklisted by spamhaus and /me lost quite some mail. Net4Domains if you must know. Atleast with the new hosting I can upload pics and other stuff. Or post MP3s and dare RIAA :P
My manager just stopped by for a talk sometime ago (after I had written the last blog entry). He was pretty concerned over /me raising issues of comp off in front of other people, which [he said] could give rise to such demands in the whole team. He mentioned the amount of time I put in office and work (or used to, till last month: Once you get a reputation of staying a lot at work you don't actually have to be there all the time; it carries through ;-) ).
Now the part which threw me off for a loop: he said he is pretty ok with me taking some day off now and then to unwind and "hang out at Lifestyle" (his exact words; Lifestyle is a shopping mall here). He said that particular phrase twice or thrice. So that's what he thinks I enjoy doing: hanging out at Lifestyle!
Caveat: As long as I don't go and blabber about it all over the place. Hmmmm, interesting, to say the least. His concern is that people who put in "8 hours a day" (as if that was a sin!) and go "home at dot 5 pm" don't start demanding comp offs too. I wonder who he meant.
So I get to take some days off now and then, as long I keep my mouth shut. And from what I gather from the conversation I'll have to call in sick. Somehow all this doesn't feel ethical to me. Though I do appreciate his gesture, I'm not sure this is how I want my day off :-/
So this is what management is all about. If I ever show signs of going for an MBA I hereby authorize everyone to knock some sense into me ;-)
Management wants us (me and two other workers) to work over this weekend to finish a project. When I raised the issue of Comp Off (compensatory off) during some time when the work load is light I got an evasive answer which turned out to be a 'No'.
I've been pretty angry at this. With me putting in extra effort at what I see as a management problem (get this product out of the door by this month) I'd be happy if the org also put in some appreciation and gave me some time off. Meet me half-way I'd say. Which is not happening. :(
I'm almost towards the end of EGB (Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid). I've immensely enjoyed reading the book, even though I did gloss over the parts where it required me to do some math. I guess I'd be coming back to it sometime again and finishing all the exercises and puzzles.
Which is what I did with The Emperor's New Mind. Tried reading it twice in college, but got stuck in the heavy maths and started skipping the maths. After sometime the book stopped making sense. So gave up. After coming to hyderabad bought myself a copy, sat down and finished the damn thing :)
Another book I've been reading is The Art of Living. Translation of a work by Roman philosopher Epictetus, it has been having quite an impact on me. Simple, direct and powerful. Borrowed it from one of the managers at my workplace, who is pretty well read. Not many people of his ilk around ;-)
Finishing SICP is next on the agenda :D
These days I'm reading Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, an amazing book about almost everything. It is certainly turning my head into mush, forcing me to think about a lot of things which I had stopped thinking about a long time ago. Since childhood.
The review mentions "some compared reading it to giving birth" . This is true.
The other book I'm messing around with is Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs which is another heavy read. Deals with functional programming, lisp and indeed thinking about programming at a very basic level. Challenges a lot of assumptions I had since I started coding, and provides the reasoning behind the others. All in all, a classic.
My mind is being reamed by these two books; and I'm especially happy about it. Maybe out of the reamed mush something good will come out...:)
