Me: Don't tell me you never had a crush in school or college man!?
After a brief pause, the crackpot Mr. Sarcastic Dickens (SD) goes:
Mr.SD: Of course I had a crush.On my school teacher...
Me: No that is not counted...
Mr.SD: ...but he rejected me.
:-D
-Courtesy Suman Kumar (www.sumankumar.com)
Friday, March 03, 2006
Monday, January 09, 2006
The Five Levels Of Programming
Hi All,
This one is dedicated to, all my programmer friends in IT.
Wanna comment about your level ?
-------------------------------------------
The Five Levels Of Programming
Just a mental exercise to distinguish multiple "levels" of programmers.
Some of the observations are India and Bangalore specific but the various "types" should beidentifiable everywhere.
Level 1 : the Novice/the Charlatan At the very bottom we have the "great unwashed hordes" - people who studied computer science because "they said that's the best way to get a job" ".The focus for these people are to get into "better " companies (where "better" is defined as "bigger") and move up the career ladder to become a manager as soon as possible.This is the person who seriously believes in iso 9000/cmm level 5 etc as "improving productivity". .On the brighter side this level also include s a lot of people just out of school and who love to program. and are eager to change the world.
Level 2 :The Expert This is the guy who knows everything aboout one particular piece of technology . It could be jsp, weblogic,C++ /the PIC microcontroller/whatever. This is the guy who'll tell you what's happening when a particular problem occurs with the technology he is an expert in.("oh just go to a config file foo and change blah to baz" ).Unfortunately in India, even this level of expertise is pretty thin on the ground. Not surprising when you see that most "IT" jobs don't want really intelligent people. (A friend's HR Manager actually asked him to select the "less talented people" when he conducted interviews beacuse the "hacker types won't like our company". Not very surprising when you get a job because you are cheap(er) than because you are good.) The distinguishing characterisitic of the expert is when people in his team /company say " hmm That's a difficult problem let's call in Mr.x "
Level 3 :The Thinker People at this level think about what they are doing and ask a great number of intelligent questions. Most often they use the simple "why" and other "dumb questions" to investigate . This stage is also marked with growing dissatisfaction about the state of the world and a feeling of "I could do better than that " when they see a piece of sub optimal code/design. (This is similair to how a lot of writers start their careers - they read some tripe and say to themselves "this idiot got published? Why I could do better.").In my experience though a lot of otherwise excellent people "freeze" at this stage and never complete the leap across the chasm that separates them from
Level 4:The Hacker This is the person who has gone beyond wishing to actually writing some code , or perhaps writing a book about what he knows.What distinguishes him from a true guru is that his expertise is narrower in scope and he often does not redefine software programming (or a sub area thereof). The charcteristic that distinguishes hime from the "lower" level is that he is well known within his area of expertise. A good example of this type of person are the tech leads of open source projects like Hibernate or the author of a book like "Regular Expressions".These are true "bearers of light".
Level 5:The Guru These are the Martin Fowlers, the Peter Norvigs , the Stallmans and the Torvalds, the von Rossums and the Larry Walls. What they do profoundly changes the world of programming and influences how the rest of the world programs.
This one is dedicated to, all my programmer friends in IT.
Wanna comment about your level ?
-------------------------------------------
The Five Levels Of Programming
Just a mental exercise to distinguish multiple "levels" of programmers.
Some of the observations are India and Bangalore specific but the various "types" should beidentifiable everywhere.
Level 1 : the Novice/the Charlatan At the very bottom we have the "great unwashed hordes" - people who studied computer science because "they said that's the best way to get a job" ".The focus for these people are to get into "better " companies (where "better" is defined as "bigger") and move up the career ladder to become a manager as soon as possible.This is the person who seriously believes in iso 9000/cmm level 5 etc as "improving productivity". .On the brighter side this level also include s a lot of people just out of school and who love to program. and are eager to change the world.
Level 2 :The Expert This is the guy who knows everything aboout one particular piece of technology . It could be jsp, weblogic,C++ /the PIC microcontroller/whatever. This is the guy who'll tell you what's happening when a particular problem occurs with the technology he is an expert in.("oh just go to a config file foo and change blah to baz" ).Unfortunately in India, even this level of expertise is pretty thin on the ground. Not surprising when you see that most "IT" jobs don't want really intelligent people. (A friend's HR Manager actually asked him to select the "less talented people" when he conducted interviews beacuse the "hacker types won't like our company". Not very surprising when you get a job because you are cheap(er) than because you are good.) The distinguishing characterisitic of the expert is when people in his team /company say " hmm That's a difficult problem let's call in Mr.x "
Level 3 :The Thinker People at this level think about what they are doing and ask a great number of intelligent questions. Most often they use the simple "why" and other "dumb questions" to investigate . This stage is also marked with growing dissatisfaction about the state of the world and a feeling of "I could do better than that " when they see a piece of sub optimal code/design. (This is similair to how a lot of writers start their careers - they read some tripe and say to themselves "this idiot got published? Why I could do better.").In my experience though a lot of otherwise excellent people "freeze" at this stage and never complete the leap across the chasm that separates them from
Level 4:The Hacker This is the person who has gone beyond wishing to actually writing some code , or perhaps writing a book about what he knows.What distinguishes him from a true guru is that his expertise is narrower in scope and he often does not redefine software programming (or a sub area thereof). The charcteristic that distinguishes hime from the "lower" level is that he is well known within his area of expertise. A good example of this type of person are the tech leads of open source projects like Hibernate or the author of a book like "Regular Expressions".These are true "bearers of light".
Level 5:The Guru These are the Martin Fowlers, the Peter Norvigs , the Stallmans and the Torvalds, the von Rossums and the Larry Walls. What they do profoundly changes the world of programming and influences how the rest of the world programs.
Friday, December 09, 2005
Ozone layer unlikely to recover until 2065
Friends,
The earth is the only planet for you and me in this universe, to play and laugh. Let's be friendly to earth.
------------------------------------------
SAN FRANCISCO -- The ozone hole over Antarctica might persist until 2065, which is two decades longer than predicted, because ozone-destroying chemicals are still being released by developed nations more than a decade after their production and importation was banned.
The Montreal Protocol, ratified in 1987, banned the creation of chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons used as coolant by developed nations. It followed the discovery that such chemicals destroyed ozone molecules and thinned the layer of ozone that is about 20 miles above the Earth's surface. The layer shields the planet from ultraviolet radiation that causes cancer and cataracts and can harm wildlife.
read more....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0512070340dec07,1,5726852.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
The earth is the only planet for you and me in this universe, to play and laugh. Let's be friendly to earth.
------------------------------------------
SAN FRANCISCO -- The ozone hole over Antarctica might persist until 2065, which is two decades longer than predicted, because ozone-destroying chemicals are still being released by developed nations more than a decade after their production and importation was banned.
The Montreal Protocol, ratified in 1987, banned the creation of chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons used as coolant by developed nations. It followed the discovery that such chemicals destroyed ozone molecules and thinned the layer of ozone that is about 20 miles above the Earth's surface. The layer shields the planet from ultraviolet radiation that causes cancer and cataracts and can harm wildlife.
read more....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0512070340dec07,1,5726852.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Why you should blog regularly
Hi Friends,
Just got some interesting info from my friend Suman Kumar's blog!
Why you should blog regularly?
Check out:
http://www.sumankumar.com/2005/09/why-you-should-blog-regularly.html
Just got some interesting info from my friend Suman Kumar's blog!
Why you should blog regularly?
Check out:
http://www.sumankumar.com/2005/09/why-you-should-blog-regularly.html
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