Lets keep fun in computing

“I think that it’s extraordinarily important that we in computer sci- ence keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints se- riously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don’t think we are. I think we’re responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don’t become missionaries. Don’t feel as if you’re Bible sales- men. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don’t feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What’s in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.” —Alan J. Perlis (April 1, 1922 – February 7, 1990) 

haqeeqat-e-ishq

Tum Haqeeqat-e-Ishq ho, ya fareb meri ankhon ka..
Na DiL se nikalte ho, na Zindagi main aate ho .

What the hell am i doing

Lately I’ve been drowning in inability to do things. Somethings happened which put a break on all the cool progress I made in last year and I don’t feel like I’m getting anything done. Numerous conversations with "me", some strange blogpost i have stumbled upon have started to make sense. 

The best i read is this. 

They can’t just decide that they want to start a company and keep it, or to move to the beach and play the keyboard for a meager living because they realize that would totally fulfill them. Instead they drown under a running faucet of infinite caveats and doubts available at a moment’s notice from their abstract thinking. They are stuck in a labyrinth of endless scenarios that never existed and never plausibly will exist, but that inform their decisions and beliefs all the same.    

... 

You will never live the life you want by wandering aimlessly through hypothetical scenarios. I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work. I’ve also tried just doing something. That worked. 

So i'm trying. 

Cheers,

About Principles

Alice shows some code to Bob. Something about it catches Bob’s eye; he tells her that this mechanism is a bad idea and she should find another approach. She asks why.

Bob, despite being correct, can’t answer.

Or maybe he can, but is worse off nonetheless: for every pitfall or potential consequence he dreams up, Alice fires back with how she’ll compensate or why it doesn’t apply in this case. Eventually Bob runs out of ideas, and Alice carries on with what she’s doing, now feeling more happy about it—she’s fought for her work and won, after all.

Bob is arguing from principle, and Alice is scoffing at the idea of principle for its own sake. Principles are for academics; out here in the real world, whatever gets the job done is good enough.

Right?

Google Search and My world

Everyone lives in their own world. They live with the only things they know, and have known all their lives. Unless you experience all that is in this world you can never understand it. You must know pain, sadness, joy and love. Fear and safety. Love and hate.You may have been a hero. And must experience being an outcast. Until you’ve felt all that’s in this world, you can never understand it.

Now this is more true with Google tweaking its results to include my G+ activities. This might mean i will never discover a new world. I might never come to understand the other world. Although it was inevitable that G+ will make its way into search results but i find it little too early. Lets wait and see what Google algorithms has in store for us.   

The Joys of the Craft : Why Programming is fun ?

What delights may its practitioner expect as his reward?

First is the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design. I think this delight must be an image of God's delight in making things, a delight shown in the distinctiveness of each leaf and each snowflake.

Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people.Deep within, we want others to use our work and to find it helpful. In this respect the programming system is not essentially different from the child's first clay pencil holder "for Daddy's office."

Third is the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles, playing out the consequences of principles built in from the beginning. The programmed computer has all the fascination of the pinball machine or the jukebox mechanism, carried to the ultimate.

Fourth is the joy of always learning, which springs from the non-repeating nature of the task. In one way or another the problem is ever new, and its solver learns something: sometimes practical, sometimes theoretical, and sometimes both.

Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures. (...) Yet the program construct, unlike the poet's words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separately from the construct itself. It prints results, draws pictures, produces sounds, moves arms. The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.

Programming then is fun because it gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men.

Note : This excerpts are from classic The Mythical Man Month Anniversary edition a must read for every software developer.  

Eclipse-ing fast !!

I recently switched back eclipse and voila i don't remember a single shortcut now. Its very painful to keep searching for right shortcut. Here are few points to help you find yours way on eclipse.  

1. Shift+Ctrl+L (Shift+Command+L on mac) : This opens the list of shortcuts available. Very helpful in remembering the shortcuts.

  

Now just scroll and remember some very helpful shortcuts.

2. Ctrl+3 (Command+3) : Sometimes you need to access functionality which does not binds to any command (aka key shortcut) than this is very helpful shortcut. Just press Ctrl+3 and start typing the name of the functionality you are looking for. For example if you wants to find the formatter. take the following route : 

As you can see it display every single functionality which contains work "code style" now just select the one you wants to use.

Remember these shortcuts when next time you need help in eclipse. 

Note: Used gmail-embedded image which got lost in transmission. screw google, will fix it tomorrow 

Happy hacking!!