Dizzy with excitement ..

weeellll .... Not exactly .. but dizzy definitely.
We finally flew the Control line model that we had been building for the past few weeks. (and we appreciate all those fellow ThoughtWorkers who did come by and Jeer .. umm I mean Cheer us on :) We dedicate the few crashes that we had to U folks). Anyways enough of sarcasm. In Aeromodelling, experience is measured by the number of broken properllers, and we are proud to say that we are two-propeller experienced as of today !! But I must say Sagars properller shows more 'experience'. Haha.

A RC Line Model is basically a plane with a powerful engine (around the same power as a TVS-Fiero i think, approx 3.2 cc) which you control using a thin Nylon rope. So basically you go round-n-round and the plane flies all around you. Pretty neat if you are not the dizzy kinds. I am and it was not nice when the model almost crashed when the dizziness hit me. So in a 5 minute flight ( which is how long the model stays in air on a full tank) I had to take a break 3 times. So it seems I have to practise turning at home to get over the dizziness !! . Oh Boy what joy to moi..

So after our twirl we were looking at the big boys flying their 25K-Remote control-All-Look-Alike planes.

They were doing some cool stuff, like twirls and nose dives and loops and we were wickedly thinking what would happen if one crashed. And God was kind to us and one of them decided not to pull up on a nose dive. Not a pretty scene, hehe. The plane kind split in the middle. All the electronics in the gut spewed out but the engine was safe I guess. Damn I didnt take a camera today. Else we could have a snap of them scooping the plane off the runway !!.

Well gotto go and practise going a round. Wheeee ..

Adding a Domain Model to Avyukta

Avyukta is a small application that Sagar and myself are building to get familiar with some of the Java open source tools that are lying around.

Havent had too much time to fool around with this though. Yesterday nite I added a basic domain model for the application and added Hibernate support to save the domain objects.

Learnt some nice stuff from the book " Java Open Source Programming".

Basically the book speaks about adding a layer between the Domain objects and the hibernate persistence. Makes a lot of sense as this makes the domain objects very testable without hitting the database. And this is important as lotsa business logic generally sits in the domain object layer.

We have a Persistence Manager in our Library ( which as of now handles saving books in the DB), and all the saving is routed thru the Persistence Manager. So when we want to test stuff we plug-in a Mock Persistence Manager and .. voila .. we have fast runnin tests.

The people aspect behind XP

One thing that I have realized is how important the 'people aspect' is to a team using extreme Programming.

And when 'non peopleness' prevails it is soooo sooo irritating !

Simple example. Take pairing for example. Sounds easy. But till date I have had a few pairing experiences that can be called orgasmic. These sessions have been intense with awesome design happening and good neat code getting churned out with tons of Unit tests. Other times its been an effort. Some pairs do it so so wrong. I mean is it so $^@# difficult to understand what pairing truely means ? One person driving all the time with the other as a spectator is no pairing. Its just human to understand that developers like to code, and its nice to let go of the keyboard sometimes !!

I work in a Team, and as a part of the team I feel responsible for the product that we're building. This is what drives me - "Were building it together". The belongingness, the fact that what Im doing is for myself not for someone else. We as a team move forward. Now if people dont realize this and generally try to exert their power to fit the stereotypic model of a Manager... ppphhhtttt.. there goes every thing. Suddenly I feel Im working undersome, for someone, for someone elses benefit. I no longer have the drive and I no longer strive for the perfection !! I 'work' to get things 'done'.

Small things. Big differences.

KDE Rocks !!!!

Discovered digiKam today

Awesome. Pretty much like Picasa from Google.
But Im really excited. Tested this with Chris's cam. It auto detected his cam (Had to click a button to auto detect though :-) I wonder why !!).
Anyways. Damn cool !

KDE rocks, KDE on Gentoo rocks even more :-) hehe.

1 Year@ ThoughtWorks !!

Its exactly 1 year since i joined TW.

Must say its been one helluva year. Have learnt tons of stuff, done tons of stuff and met tons of very very intereting people. No wonder its logo says "The art of Heavy Lifting". hehe .. Bad PJ i Know .

Cheers to a few more :-)

Aeromodelling update

Today was a landmark of sorts.

Nate offered Sagar 200 bucks and Sagar sold his soul (pretty cheap huh :-)) and chucked his glider from the balcony of our office (thats 6th floor with tons of traffic below. Tch tch .. what ppl do for money !!) ;-)

Anyways it took off beautifully, glided for a moment and then decided to perform a nose dive and Nose dive it did !!!. And almost knocked out Juggu (another ThoughtWorker) who was loafing on the streets below... Amazing. We almost died laughing.

So tomorrow were planning to prepare another launch ... 400 bucks .. going once .. going twice .. anyone ???

Anyways in the evening we went to our 'Guru' and he said that we have to perform penance for that sinful act by making a bigger model with a 3.3 cc engine !!! ... Aaaahhh .. another gazillion hrs of sanding a piece of wood coxing it to look like an aerofoil section .. Oh boy .. the Joy !!

So thats where we are. We got our first sponsorer, performed the maiden flight, had the maiden crash, almost got a thoughtless thoughtWorker and are working towards salvation. What can be better ???

I think were beginning to see the propellor at the end of the fusalage.

IDEA for OpenSource

awesome move by JetBrains !!!!

Did U guys know that IntelliJ is free for open source development ??

pretty funny blog about the life of a Consultant

check it out here.

Interviewing !!

"My Friend the Developer" is a blog where this dude interviews his friends and blogs about it.

Kind of interesting

Gentooed my Laptop !!!

Finally Gentoo is up and Running .. naah .. Sprinting on my machine !!!!!

Beautiful.
I had fedora core 3 on the laptop before and KDE felt kind of sluggish, but on gentoo its a snap.

Thanx to our local "Benny Hinn" Gentoo-Guru Vivek Prahlad. ;-)
Looks like tis a Gentoo epidemic here.

It Flies.. It flies !!!

It took off, it glided, it took a turn, it glided some more and it softly landed on a desk...
ahhh .. the joys of building something with your own hands.

ya . the second time it crash landed :-)