Shonzilla, a pattern-seeking animal

Life is a game of patterns and chance, and those who play well will win.

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Fri Mar 12
This picture pretty much sums up what I ever thought about all those “Teach yourself X in Y days” books. Typically, X is any programming language that someone, other than your relatives, would give you money in return for something useful to them made using this programming language. Y < 3 years spent of real projects for real customers, not your relatives. Learning to learn a programming language is completely pointless if you’re not actually making software for someone who uses it. I would dare to make a metaphor, which was almost certainly used before, that making software is similar to learning to cook. “Making yourself eggs&bacon in 5 minutes” is not much of a feat - everyone can do it when one’s too hungry, desperate or clueless. Getting to a point to cook food that many if not all people enjoy requires dedication and years, sometimes even decades. That explains why a great majority of us cook food for up to four-five people, usually just one or two. Winning a Michelin star is a feat work of respect of restaurant chef’s cooking skills, which also indicates that you cannot teach yourself to be a rockstar programmer. On the other hand, imagine learning to be a chef or becoming passionate about cooking just by reading, say, all Jamie Oliver books. Insert yourself your favorite Yoda or Matrix quote here… ;-) Next time you better reach for “X for idiots” book series. They’re at least not lying you. The comic above comes from AbstruseGoose hinted by a BBS acquaintance back then and University colleague Nebojša, who’s using C++ at Google on a daily basis.

This picture pretty much sums up what I ever thought about all those “Teach yourself X in Y days” books.

Typically, X is any programming language that someone, other than your relatives, would give you money in return for something useful to them made using this programming language.

Y < 3 years spent of real projects for real customers, not your relatives.

Learning to learn a programming language is completely pointless if you’re not actually making software for someone who uses it.

I would dare to make a metaphor, which was almost certainly used before, that making software is similar to learning to cook. “Making yourself eggs&bacon in 5 minutes” is not much of a feat - everyone can do it when one’s too hungry, desperate or clueless. Getting to a point to cook food that many if not all people enjoy requires dedication and years, sometimes even decades. That explains why a great majority of us cook food for up to four-five people, usually just one or two. Winning a Michelin star is a feat work of respect of restaurant chef’s cooking skills, which also indicates that you cannot teach yourself to be a rockstar programmer. On the other hand, imagine learning to be a chef or becoming passionate about cooking just by reading, say, all Jamie Oliver books.

Insert yourself your favorite Yoda or Matrix quote here… ;-)

Next time you better reach for “X for idiots” book series. They’re at least not lying you.

The comic above comes from AbstruseGoose hinted by a BBS acquaintance back then and University colleague Nebojša, who’s using C++ at Google on a daily basis.

Tags: get rich quick language learning lie programming software truth
Fri Aug 1
“ # Write the test before you write the code # Manage the lifecycle of your objects fastidiously
# Build only what you need now, not what you might need later
# Apply ancient philosophies to software development
# Question authority, rather than blindly adhere to standards
# Make hard things easier and impossible things possible through meta-programming
# Be sure all code within a method is at the same level of abstraction
# Pick the right editor and assemble the best tools for the job O’Reilly - Safari Books Online - The Productive Programmer
Tags: programming software tips book pragmatic
Tue May 13

Android Developer Challenge - round I winners

Android Developer Challenge - round I winners

Android is a mobile device platform coming from Google and backed by Open Handset Alliance. As of May 2008, there are still not Android devices available for purchase, although some have been demoed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this March.

In an attempt to bootstrap creation of a developer community, Google has launched Android Developer Challenge in November 2007, when this mobile device platform has been seen by the general public for the first time. This move has generated a significant interest in the blogosphere, as well as some criticism as far as the Android SDK was concerned, especially for its first, M3 release. In the round I of the contest which has been open until April 14, 2008, a solid number of 1788 entries have been accumulated, 50 best submissions have been selected. Each of the round I winners has received $25kUS which is a nice amount to boostrap the new business. All of 50 winners are participating in round II for additional ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards. Pretty nice?

In a smart and “don’t be evil” manner, Google has not announced the winners and delegated it to respective Android application developers to spread the buzz and promote the Android platform.

Official list should appears online today. In the meantime, I’ll post some winner entries whose authors chose to brag about their success. After respective applications become available, I might as well post some reviews of the most promising ones.

In the alphabetical list that follows you’ll notice there

  1. Android Scan - Jeffrey Sharkey - automatic barcode recognition and interface to review and auctions web sites
  2. Beetaun - Sergey Gritsyuk and Dmitri Shipilov
  3. BioWallet - Jose Luis Huertas Fernandez - biometric authentication system
  4. BreadCrumbz - Amos Yoffe
  5. CallACab - Konrad Huebner and Henning Boeger
  6. City Slikkers - PoroCity Media and Virtual Logic Systems - location based game
  7. Commandro - Alex Pisarev, Andrey Tapekha - track where your friends are located
  8. Cooking Capsules - Mary Ann Cotter and Muthuselvam Ramadoss
  9. Diggin - Daniel Johansson, Aramis Waernbaum, Andreas Hedin
  10. Dyno - Virachat Boondharigaputra
  11. e-ventr - Michael Zitzelsberger
  12. Eco2go - Taneem Talukdar, Gary Pong, Jeff Kao and Robert Lam - tracks your trips and suggests transportation alternatives to reduce your carbon footprint
  13. Em-Radar - Jack Kwok - weather emergency alerts
  14. Fingerprint - Robert Mickle - collaborative sketching and painting
  15. FreeFamilyWatch - Navee Technologies LLC
  16. goCart - Rylan Barnes
  17. GolfPlay - Inizziativa Networks - support for golf players
  18. gWalk - Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus ten Hagen, Christian Klinger, Marko Modsching, Rene Scholze
  19. HandWx - Weathertop Consulting LLC - location based weather forecast (news article about HandWx)
  20. IMEasy - Yan Shi
  21. Jigsaw - Mikhail Ksenzov
  22. JOYity - Zelfi AG
  23. LifeAware - Gregory Moore, Aaron L. Obrien, Jawad Akhtar
  24. Locale - Clare Bayley, Christina Wright, Jasper Lin, Carter Jernigan - dynamic device settings manager (CNN Money and TechCrunch wrote about this team of MIT students)
  25. LReady Emergency Manager - Chris Hulls, Dilpreet Singh, Luis Carvalho, Phuong Nguyen
  26. Marvin - Pontier Laurent
  27. Mobeedo - Sengaro GmbH - mobile search engine
  28. Multiple Facets Instant Messenger - Virgil Dobjanschi
  29. MyCloset - Mamoru Tokashiki
  30. PedNav - RouteMe2 Technologies Inc. - trip planner
  31. Phonebook 2.0 - Voxmobili
  32. PicSay - Eric Wijngaard
  33. PiggyBack - Christophe Petit and Sebastien Petit
  34. Pocket Journey - Anthony Stevens and Rosie Pongracz - interactive pocket city guide
  35. Rayfarla - Stephen Oldmeadow
  36. Safety Net - Michael DeJadon
  37. SocialMonster - Ben Siu-Lung Hui and Tommy Ng
  38. SplashPlay - guitar teacher
  39. Sustain- Keeping Your Social Network Alive - Niraj Swami
  40. SynchroSpot - Shaun Terry
  41. Talkplay - Sung Suh Park
  42. Teradesk - José Augusto Athayde Ferrarini
  43. The Weather Channel for Android - The Weather Channel Interactive Inc.
  44. TuneWiki - TuneWiki Inc. - lyrics downloaded and awailable while a music tune is being played
  45. Wikitude-the Mobile Travel Guide - Philipp Breuss - suggests points of interest based on location
  46. Writing Pad - ShapeWriter Inc

I’m taking the liberty of listing another entry which has not been published.

Mobeegal.in - location based search engine about which I found out via Intellibitz@Twitter.

If you have more details on any of the entries - let me know via Twitter.

Cheers!
Shonzilla

Tags: Android mobile Google software competition development programming