Was watching the movie called "Sunshine" yesterday. Plot goes something as follows:
"The sun is dying and consequently so is Earth. A team of astronauts go with the mission of reviving the sun but unfortunately fail. Seven years later, another team sets out as Earth's last hope."
There was this scene where a mission critical decision was to be made. One person suggested a show of hands in order to make that decision but he was easily silenced and the decision was instead entrusted to the person who had the maximum knowledge on the subject. Logical, isn't it? No arguments - Just let the right person take the decision.
Why do we have this thing called Parliament? Why do people discuss for hours on a topic / bill that they haven't investigated, spent little time / effort on? Why should it be voted on by 500+ members of the house? Why can't decisions be made for the greater good knowing fully well that everybody cannot be satisfied?
Won't it be better if we had an authoritarian government? It seems so. Read the following article:
http://webmerchants.com/spectrum/bubble.htm
I think it echoes my sentiments pretty well. And I find Singapore ("Land of Illegal Chewing Gum") pretty fascinating to read about. Should experience it soon as well.. Bring on the first F1 night race in '08... :-)
Friday, July 13, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
The Cost Of "Configurability"
As most of us already know, there are quite a few solutions to a problem. Now, how do we choose what to opt for if more than one solution seems to make sense ? Most people that I meet come to a decision almost immediately on this issue. Provide both the solutions and make it configurable so that the customer can choose whichever he prefers.
Wow!!! That's bloody brilliant... Why didn't I think of that before?
Because, I didn't want to run away from the problem. It's an easy task to leave the decision making to someone else. And leaving the decision making to the most uninformed person (a.k.a "customer") is not exactly wise.
The customer doesn't always know what he wants. This has been iterated dozens of times by people like Joel Spolsky. However, for some reason, things that make make sense doesn't seem to catch on as "agile" does... :-) Hats off to Steve for his excellent articles:
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad-agile_27.html
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/10/egomania-itself.html
(The "agile" interpretations in my company would make another very interesting read... )
The problem is pretty much of a known issue. "Common Sense" is just not that common... But what really gets wasted over here and what I am arguing for? I get paid the same regardless of how many solutions I provide. The cost incurred over here is something which is missing to most people. The two solutions and "configurability" are going to cost us more time and instead of creating an iPhone after iPod, we are going to be stuck with the rather envious task of arranging the music in folders named after Artist & Album rather than in folders such as F00, F01 and so forth.
The company is pretty much going to lose its edge over competition for favoring work that provides immediate and probably less money rather than spending time on something that would enable it to capture newer markets or a bigger share of the market.
Well, the focus should be on what the customer needs rather than what he asks... But would it not offend existing customers if we don't deliver what they ask? Well, that's where the customer engineer's role is critical. He has to be the smooth talking guy who basically tells, "Wow, that's a great idea.. Let me discuss with the engineers back home and get back on it. BTW, our engineers have started work on this great new product that does blah blah blah...". Its that simple really...
Wow!!! That's bloody brilliant... Why didn't I think of that before?
Because, I didn't want to run away from the problem. It's an easy task to leave the decision making to someone else. And leaving the decision making to the most uninformed person (a.k.a "customer") is not exactly wise.
The customer doesn't always know what he wants. This has been iterated dozens of times by people like Joel Spolsky. However, for some reason, things that make make sense doesn't seem to catch on as "agile" does... :-) Hats off to Steve for his excellent articles:
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad-agile_27.html
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/10/egomania-itself.html
(The "agile" interpretations in my company would make another very interesting read... )
The problem is pretty much of a known issue. "Common Sense" is just not that common... But what really gets wasted over here and what I am arguing for? I get paid the same regardless of how many solutions I provide. The cost incurred over here is something which is missing to most people. The two solutions and "configurability" are going to cost us more time and instead of creating an iPhone after iPod, we are going to be stuck with the rather envious task of arranging the music in folders named after Artist & Album rather than in folders such as F00, F01 and so forth.
The company is pretty much going to lose its edge over competition for favoring work that provides immediate and probably less money rather than spending time on something that would enable it to capture newer markets or a bigger share of the market.
Well, the focus should be on what the customer needs rather than what he asks... But would it not offend existing customers if we don't deliver what they ask? Well, that's where the customer engineer's role is critical. He has to be the smooth talking guy who basically tells, "Wow, that's a great idea.. Let me discuss with the engineers back home and get back on it. BTW, our engineers have started work on this great new product that does blah blah blah...". Its that simple really...
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Showstopper
Surprisingly, despite the absence of an F1 race, the previous weekend seemed to go past without a trace of boredom. The key to that is undoubtedly "Showstopper" by Pascal Zachary - a book detailing the personalities behind and the evolution of Windows NT. An absolutely awesome read...
URL:
http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Microsoft/dp/0029356717
I think I came across this book first in one of Jeff Atwood's blogs and then found it in Joel's recommended reading list as well. After reading a preview in Amazon, I was absolutely hooked onto it. Owing to no shipments to India, I couldn't get to lay my hands on this for a while.
The library in our Israel office seems that much better thanks to the possession of this book alone. One of the statements in the book seemed to stick to my head:
"No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time in the office."
It echoes the same philosophy that my first project manager advocated. He didn't want any of us to spend too much time @ office. But he ensured that the team was focussed with work and always had work during the office time. I think I did learn quite a bit in my first company. Listening to stories of bench time of friends working in the service companies, I had told myself: "Stick to a product company always!!!". Frankly, I don't think I have ever been as productive as I was there.
The book talks quite in depth about David Cuter, the chief architect for the project. I remember him being designated as "Senior Distinguished Engineer" in one of the Microsoft books. (Microsoft designations are a bit funny though. Mark Russinovich (sysinternal's guy) is designated as "Technical Fellow" :-)). He is potrayed as an incredibly brilliant but arrogant guy. Likewise, I recently happened to watch one of Linus Torvalds talks on "git" -- a source control software tool that was written by him and used for linux kernel maintenance. He was practically bull shitting every other tool in the market.
People do make comments that knowledgeable folks are humble but I think that's something that doesn't always hold good. My observation is that winners and people at the top are mostly arrogant & supremely confident. And I think they need to be... in order not to give up easily on something hard.
(and I think this reasonably justifies me acting a touch arrogant while playing TT... :-) I play pretty good for an amateur... :-D )
URL:
http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Microsoft/dp/0029356717
I think I came across this book first in one of Jeff Atwood's blogs and then found it in Joel's recommended reading list as well. After reading a preview in Amazon, I was absolutely hooked onto it. Owing to no shipments to India, I couldn't get to lay my hands on this for a while.
The library in our Israel office seems that much better thanks to the possession of this book alone. One of the statements in the book seemed to stick to my head:
"No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time in the office."
It echoes the same philosophy that my first project manager advocated. He didn't want any of us to spend too much time @ office. But he ensured that the team was focussed with work and always had work during the office time. I think I did learn quite a bit in my first company. Listening to stories of bench time of friends working in the service companies, I had told myself: "Stick to a product company always!!!". Frankly, I don't think I have ever been as productive as I was there.
The book talks quite in depth about David Cuter, the chief architect for the project. I remember him being designated as "Senior Distinguished Engineer" in one of the Microsoft books. (Microsoft designations are a bit funny though. Mark Russinovich (sysinternal's guy) is designated as "Technical Fellow" :-)). He is potrayed as an incredibly brilliant but arrogant guy. Likewise, I recently happened to watch one of Linus Torvalds talks on "git" -- a source control software tool that was written by him and used for linux kernel maintenance. He was practically bull shitting every other tool in the market.
People do make comments that knowledgeable folks are humble but I think that's something that doesn't always hold good. My observation is that winners and people at the top are mostly arrogant & supremely confident. And I think they need to be... in order not to give up easily on something hard.
(and I think this reasonably justifies me acting a touch arrogant while playing TT... :-) I play pretty good for an amateur... :-D )
My first hair-cut abroad....
I'm sure this is not a topic that most would expect to start a start a new blog with. But hey, its me.. . Prepare to expect the unexpected always. Been a while since I stopped writing and decided to have fresh start.
This is my 4th trip to Israel and what was planned as a 3-week visit had elongated into a 2+ month trip and the signs of return seems pretty far off. The 3 month expiry on the visa provides some solace though. Not that Israel is a bad place but watching F1 with Hebrew commentary is seriously frustrating especially when the season is blossoming into such an exciting one with Macca looking in terrific form especially in the past three races (Monaco, Montreal & Indy...). Some people have however started attributing the recent turn in form to my leaving Bangalore and have urged me to elongate my stay though... :-)
Coming to the topic however, the unexpected elongation meant that I was forced to take a hair-cut in Israel. I decided to go to the nearby saloon and I stumbled across three shops all side-by-side. To my luck, all of customers present in the saloon's seem to be female. Not wanting to embarass myself by entering a ladies only stylist, I stood confused for a while.
I then spotted another guy waiting for his turn in the first shop and decided to opt for the same shop [Well, the phat chick in the counter also aided in making the decision.. :-P]. At first, the decision seemed to be a good one with the same person, doing the initial hair wash.. :-) and then came my turn to the barber. Confirming my worst fears, the barber seemed to know very little English. However, the customer seated next to me seemed to follow English and came to my rescue. The cutting then commenced..
The barber was enthusiastic about India and I learnt that he had visited India. Peculiarly, that seems to hold true for at least 50% of the Israelis I meet : quite a massive percentage by any standards. After a few minutes, he asked how the haircut was shaping up? I retorted it was good. He then asked whether it was good or very good?? If there is one thing I'm really good at, it is at pissing people off. Invariably every second conversation of mine, ends up in an argument. But I do know better than to piss off a person wielding a scissors and a blade. I promptly said "very good" and this seemed to enthuse the barber further and the scissor work continued... A couple of minutes later, he said he was through and to my horror, I faced a spiky hair-do.. and I went "Oh Oh.."
I then said, I don't like it that way and there was bit of corrective action necessary and what started as a medium haircut became a pretty short one. But the end wasn't that bad a result. It costed 60 NIS but compared to the rate at Japan, this was definitely a bargain. However, I did re-learn the basic lesson for all haircuts: You must know when to say "Stop".
This is my 4th trip to Israel and what was planned as a 3-week visit had elongated into a 2+ month trip and the signs of return seems pretty far off. The 3 month expiry on the visa provides some solace though. Not that Israel is a bad place but watching F1 with Hebrew commentary is seriously frustrating especially when the season is blossoming into such an exciting one with Macca looking in terrific form especially in the past three races (Monaco, Montreal & Indy...). Some people have however started attributing the recent turn in form to my leaving Bangalore and have urged me to elongate my stay though... :-)
Coming to the topic however, the unexpected elongation meant that I was forced to take a hair-cut in Israel. I decided to go to the nearby saloon and I stumbled across three shops all side-by-side. To my luck, all of customers present in the saloon's seem to be female. Not wanting to embarass myself by entering a ladies only stylist, I stood confused for a while.
I then spotted another guy waiting for his turn in the first shop and decided to opt for the same shop [Well, the phat chick in the counter also aided in making the decision.. :-P]. At first, the decision seemed to be a good one with the same person, doing the initial hair wash.. :-) and then came my turn to the barber. Confirming my worst fears, the barber seemed to know very little English. However, the customer seated next to me seemed to follow English and came to my rescue. The cutting then commenced..
The barber was enthusiastic about India and I learnt that he had visited India. Peculiarly, that seems to hold true for at least 50% of the Israelis I meet : quite a massive percentage by any standards. After a few minutes, he asked how the haircut was shaping up? I retorted it was good. He then asked whether it was good or very good?? If there is one thing I'm really good at, it is at pissing people off. Invariably every second conversation of mine, ends up in an argument. But I do know better than to piss off a person wielding a scissors and a blade. I promptly said "very good" and this seemed to enthuse the barber further and the scissor work continued... A couple of minutes later, he said he was through and to my horror, I faced a spiky hair-do.. and I went "Oh Oh.."
I then said, I don't like it that way and there was bit of corrective action necessary and what started as a medium haircut became a pretty short one. But the end wasn't that bad a result. It costed 60 NIS but compared to the rate at Japan, this was definitely a bargain. However, I did re-learn the basic lesson for all haircuts: You must know when to say "Stop".
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