Manish’s Scribble Board

Take it easy, am not crying! Its a pun intended intentionally for most of the people. You would like to ask what it actually means? Well read on…..

Software Engineering was the paper this semester in which every Tom,Dick and Harry scored more than he expected. Leave besides what this paper really meant, the teachers were also rich with marks and flooded the students. Naturally, everyone has high expectations in it and many even hoped of getting an A+ once in engineering.

Now my scene: I left the first sessional (no regretting) and then second. My internals were the lowest in the whole batch or at least among lowest. Means I dot know what software Engineering it and am very weak in it. Maybe I am,according to the Indian Education System. Whatever happened later doesn’t count. People got A+, majority A and I surprisingly got a B ( more than expectations).

Well the above two paragraphs was just to build the story’s climax,well its not a story anyway. Now working here at Microsoft on real time projects, I felt half of the things are not required at the earlier stage and more complicated things can be learnt gradually with experience. Have we been give any idea of Version Control Systems ? The answer is a big NO! I cant imagine developing a good software without a version control system.

Coming to some simple things. We had been told to document our codes, even the format of documenting was taught and any other way of documenting was prohibited (unless you wanted to lose marks). What happens here or anywhere, document the way you deem fit keeping in mind some standards. All companies have their own method of documenting codes. In a typical file, 2/3 rd of the content are comments.

My suggestion to budding coders and programmers is not to blindly follow the books as suggested by our Education System but think use the net to find out standards. We havnt been even taught how to file bugs. We had been taught testing, now what to do if we find a bug? ( Swallow it? ) There is something called a bug tracker or Issue Tracker.

Concluding the whole article, I would like to say that you alone can make a big software provided you follow the standard methods like documenting, naming, intendation and some more software development concepts. In any way dont follow the Books blindly.

Ahem! I forgot one thing, most of the Engineers in my batch are preparing for MBA! Who wants to be a coder? Hard to figure out.

Ever since I reached Hyderabad I had hundreds of plans in my mind like having fun. playing tennis and all sorts of new things and adventures. Hardly half of those plans materialized, and rest half things were totally unexpected. I didnt imagine having some moments spending with my team sharing experiences.

It so happened that last week our Visual Studio Team went for a movie outing at IMAX Hyderabad. I was a bit reluctant at the beginning as most of the people were still aliens to me. Though the movie was Indiana Jones which I didnt want to see, still I took the ticket from my admin. I was even relucant to go since I had loads of work unfinished and was a bit scared that my mentor was find me leaving work for movie. When I returned back after collecting the tickets, he met he with tickets in my mind. I was a bit speechless thinking of the worse. To my surprise he said ” So you going for the movie na?“. I yelled “Yes, surely“. This was one face of the so called geeks at Microsoft.

The whole trip was amazing, it takes 45 mins from the campus to Prasad’s IMAX. My mentor is a real funloving guy (I noticed later), though his command with technical things is also amazing. I met many of my team members with whom I shared my experiences and all of them were praising my mentor ( named Gautam Geonka) of his skills. We were a total of 30 people and we did play and had fun even in the bus. The only thing missing was courtesy dinner too ( Cool Down! Just Joking). Taking us to movie on a Gold Ticket costing 200 bucks in itself a big deal at lest for we freshies.

VSTS Stands for Visual Studio Team System which is the team responsible for making Testing tools in Visual Studio

Succumbing to the global oil prices pressure, the central government announced a steep hike of Rs 5 for petrol, Rs 3 for diesel and Rs 50 for LPG. What next? protests and strikes and bound to follow, the only sufferers are the common people. For me the increase was inevitable, the global crude oil prices are more than $110 per gallon and the oil companies are facing loss of more than Rs 25 per litre of petrol. Petroleum Minister Deora wanted a Rs 10 hike but this steep hike was too risky.

Now what are the after-affects? Here at Hyderabad the autorickshaws went on strike, on that same day, the cabs were also in the same state. This situation hit the IT sector hardest as more than 80% of cabs are used for IT companies ( according to The Hindu ). We missed our office on Friday as our guest house was too far off. I had thought of staying till late night but had to leave before midnight. The cab owners have called off their strike ( they were on strike for VAT issue, not fuels ) . Autos are going on complete strike from sunday as the newspaper says. Hard time next, as we out flat is 7 kms from office after shifting.

Instead of protesting against the fuel hike, we should try to save it as much as we can, use public transport as much as possible, use fuel sensibly. If the price is not hiked, the oil companies will run out of cash to import and then we will face power crisis which will be too disastrous for this developing nation. Even this growing crude oil demand should go down since demand-supply equation is responsible for such sky-rocketing prices.

Sorry for the Bad English! I cant help

Ask this question to a full time employee of any company? Where does he want spend most of his time, the answer can be at home due to obvious fact- they have gone tired of work. Well! The situation is different here, we interns like the office very much. Want to know the reasons? AC, Cokes, Beverages, Free Supper, Free Lunch (using Food allowance), hope drop by cab at night, no reporting time etc etc etc. What more we want?

Now lets discuss on work, I learnt C#.NET using Visual Studio.NET with .NET Framework 4.0. These two products as far as I know are still not released but Microsoft has issued a press release for the same. I developed a widget type of application for getting myself familiar with this new language, which surely cant be used for daily work. Now I have been given the main project about which I cant disclose because I signed the NDA at the time of joining. The work is going to be tedious but the environmnt at office is very relaxing (at least for now).

There is a strike by the cabs and auto rickshaws here in Hyderabad due to which were not able to report at work. Cabs are off the roads due to some VAT issues and autos due to increased fuel prices. Worst is still to come, all the drivers are expected to move to strike from Sunday. That too this strike is indefinite!!!

So finally have reached Hyderabad on Thursday itself, joining is on 2nd of June- Monday. Microsoft has arranged a guest house for our stay for the next 15 days. Am speechless at the facilities provided here- AC, Plasma TV, wi-fi, Fridge etc.

Our office is too far off from this place. Firstly we have to walk 2 kms from guest house to get to the nearest bus stand, from where Gachibowli is more than 10 kms. Bus service is too cheap at this place. Yesterday we went to central mall, where we watched Chronicals of Narnia- Prince Caspain at PVR. Did a lot of shopping and returned back late at night.

At present am relaxing at the guest house, (mis)using the wi-fi connection at the most. Only sleeping eating and TV is out routine. Who knows what is in store of us from Monday?

Check out some pics Here