I am an ardent fan of the Functional programming paradigm, and in particular the Lisp family of languages. Clojure stands out in that list due to it being a modern and brilliant Lisp. It is one of the best ways to weed out accidental complexity (usually introduced by languages like Java) and worry about only the essential complexity of a problem. We are all indebted to Rich Hickey for creating Clojure, piggy-backing on the JVM, and later ClojureScript that targets JavaScript.

Introduction

A blog post after 6 long years. Yay!

Recently I had to setup my personal Macbook and migrate some stuff from the previous machine.

In the past, I had written more in-depth posts about setting up my laptop for programming. What follows is the quick 2018 version for my future reference.

Let us get the ball rolling!

Basic Machine Setup

A. IR Black theme

Get IR Black theme for the Terminal. The link in that article to download the theme file doesn’t work anymore, and so we can Google to locate it.

Introduction

About a year ago, I had posted in depth about my love for Ruby, and how I set up my Linux box on Ubuntu 10.10, including how to set up Ruby on Rails in that environment.

Well the time has come for an update for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS that came out during the last week of April.

Since I had written that previous post in such detail, I will just jot down the steps in this one. This is more for my reference, but may be it will be of use to someone as well. Also, that post came in quite handy during the current setup and so I hope I would refer back to this one as well in future.

Vim at 20: Simply the Best Text Editor

Earlier this week, on November 2, 2011, the awesome Vim text editor turned 20 years old. Vim started its life, as many of you might be aware, as the clone or imitation of the venerable vi editor created by Bill Joy – who went on to cofound Sun Microsystems – for Unix. It is a tribute to the genius of Bill Joy that his core ideas are kicking and thriving even 35 years after he created vi.

Introduction

As many of you might be aware, I have been a fan of the Ruby language for a few years now, and though I had read a bit about Rails, I started learning and using it on a daily basis only during the past 8 to 10 weeks. Coming to the world of Linux from Windows has been liberating, especially for a keyboard junkie like me. Plus I just love the fact that I can invert the color of any/all window by pressing WindowsKey+N or WindowsKey+M. That is just super awesome!

_“Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment.” _— L. Ron Hubbard

“Be the worst guy in every band you’re in.” – Pat Metheny

“There are always two parties; the establishment and the movement.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today I am completing the first decade of my career as a professional programmer, and I thought this was a good time to jot down a few thoughts and undertake a whirlwind tour of the last decade. It is just a sweet and pure coincidence that I am sharing the tenth anniversary with the agile manifesto – it was signed on the day I turned pro! And one of the goals is to see whether I can keep this post short!

2010 - The Year of Revival of Tech Book Reading

As part of the get better initiative, I decided to find and spend time improving my knowledge, one book at a time. Though I would love to write a few lines about each book, for lack of time, I am just dumping the list here. But rest assured that each of them is a great book:

January:

  The Art of Unit Testing by @RoyOsherove

“Most programmers have only a vague notion of how competent they are at what they do for a living” – Steve Yegge

“Experience comes from practice” – Andy Hunt

I thought I was done and dusted having wrote that previous redux post about how to be a better programmer. But my good friend Subru had posted a comment that made me (as it does most of the time) take notice and do some thinking and research about the importance of study and practice in the career of programmers. I did that since it has a direct impact on the topic I have been harping about – the talent of the programmers like me, or the lack of it.

“Software development productivity would skyrocket if the least effective 30% were fired tomorrow” – Neal Ford

It was in the December of 2005 that I first wrote about how to be a better programmer. At that time I was into my fifth year as a programmer, and though I wanted to write what I am writing today, I decided to narrow down my scope to non-technical issues. I wrote about code readability and code maintainability that day. As important as these issues were (are), I guess there is a larger issue that must be addressed – the technical skill set of the programmers. Then I wrote about (nay, linked to) the fatherly advice to new programmers (web archive link) by Chuck Jazdzewski.

I have been working as a programmer for a little over 5 years now, and it was with great interest that I read the article What is a Professional Programmer, written by Sarah George, and hosted at DeveloperDotStar Magazine.

I think I can say that I have been on the right path so far when I evaluate myself on the various parameters she has mentioned, viz., trustworthiness, teamwork, leadership, communication, constant updating of skills, an interest in minimizing risks and accountability.

I was pondering over the last few days over having the right kind of people in a team, any team, including a Software Development team. It suddenly flashed in my mind that I had seen a quote attributed to Dravid somewhere on the same topic.

At last, I figured it out. Dravid had given a rather absorbing interview to the Cricinfo magazine that appeared in the inaugural issue (Jan 2006 issue that had Dravid on the front cover) of the magazine. This was what I was looking for:

Fantastic write-up on the seven habits that can help one grow as a better programmer. Aptly titled the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Programmers [web archive link here], it is written by someone who has been-there-done-that. A must read for any serious programmer, or someone who cares about the craft, especially if you work in a team. There are other articles too on that site, and so check them out as well. But this is the best of the lot, as they say.

“Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.” – Martin Fowler

Programming the proper way

I love programming, and I love programming the proper way. I belong to the school of thought that believes that programming is as much an art or a craft, as it is a science or an engineering. For me programming is not just another activity that humans do to make money. It is my passion! Of course, I do earn money by way of programming, but then there is nothing wrong with that.