One More Day

In anime/manga or in comics someone is not dead until you see them dead. There are some exceptions like Superman. Resurrecting the dead happened so many time in fiction that you won’t believe it anymore if a character is really dead.

Personally I hate it when they kill a character just to boost sales. But what happened to Spiderman is the worst of all. If you are not aware of the current comic scene, Spiderman is unmasked. The Marvel universe now knows that Peter Parker IS Spiderman. There was this event in Marvel called Civil War. There was a superhero reality show that turned awry. A whole town was destroyed. The US government now wanted to have superheroes to register. Some was in favor(Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic etc) and some were against(Captain America etc). Spiderman was initially in the pro group. To show his support he unmasked himself in public. Later on he switched sides.

Because everyone knows that Peter Parker is Spiderman, Peter Parker is now an easy target. Aunt May was accidentally(the main target is Peter) sniped and was critically wounded. Peter Parker asked for help but nobody could. Mephisto offered him a deal. (from wikipedia)In exchange for Aunt May’s life he will wipe all memory of Peter’s marriage to MJ from all but one part of their souls, so that he may listen to those parts’ pain for the rest of eternity.

It was a selfish and bad decision but I can live with that. Here is the kicker. MJ offered Mephisto something in exchange for the world not knowing that Peter is Spiderman. WTF?!?

This is the worst. What happened already happened. The world knowing Peter Parker is Spiderman is a big change in direction. I was actually curious on how they will bring the story forward. Doing a retcon this early is like making the whole unmasking event just a big gimmick to boost sales. In the end everyone lost. Aunt May, Peter, MJ and the fans.

Just imagine your employees getting hit by a truck…

The Philippine Software Industry Association recently slammed the aggressive “poaching” of Singaporean recruiters. You can read it here and here.

Problem: An employee sometimes leaves in a hurry and do not give a 30 day notice period.

Solution: Stricter work visa requirements for Filipinos. A resignation letter and a clearance should be presented.

IMHO. This is a flawed solution. If their problem is the 30 day notice period not being followed then they should lobby for its stricter implementation. They wanted to make clearance a requirement because it places the employee in their mercy. Sheesh!

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Another quote:

It’s the expertise … these people have spent months on a project or with a client and they’re familiar with it. You can’t replace that kind of knowledge. So we can’t meet deadlines, end up being penalised, or we lose the customer and damage our track record.

Do they know the concept of truck number?

Companies spend millions for fault tolerance and redundancy in their server hardware. The cost of disruption is more expensive than the fault tolerant and redundant hardware. Now if the smooth flow of their software project is important, I think they should put their money where their mouth is.

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The brain drain is really an issue. This is happening not only in the IT industry. But this is not an excuse for implementing bad solutions.

I have been busy on some thing lately(plus I need to do a lot of chores). Hence it was only now that I was able to blog again.

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Last week my boss talked to me again. We talked about the same topic. This time, to convince me that it is better to be a business analyst, he told me that technical people rarely get (really)big salaries. And I should really think about it since later I would have a have a family. He also told me that later on I would also want to drive a BMW and having a big salary(by moving to management) will solve that.

I do agree that there is a limit to the salaries of technical people but life is not all about money. If I want to earn money might as well establish my own business rather than doing something that I do not like to do and something that I am not good at.

Right now I would rather do what I want to do.

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When I was still in high school most of the girls would always say that they want someone “nice.” They usually end up with someone not that nice. This blog entry explains what they meant by someone nice.

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Before the Harry Potter Book 7 launch there was this scanned leak of the book. Many were angry. Some even planned to have a media blackout until they get to read the book.

I was thinking that if the reason people do not want spoilers is because knowing in advance spoils the experience of knowing by themselves what would happen, then why would pregnant women want  to know what will be the sex of their child? Ultrasound are spoilers right? Well of course it would be hard to buy the things that the child needs if you would only know if the child is a boy or girl after he/she is delivered. But if hypothetically that you have a  set of clothes, playpens etc and is ready whether it is a boy or a girl would you still want to know in advance? Or would you rather be surprised?

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How many time sheets do you fill-up?

I fill-up three. At least I am supposed to fill-up three. One time sheet for charging the business(weekly), the other is for our team leader to track our progress(weekly) and another for our manager(daily).

The newest time sheet that i need to fill-up is the one for our manager. I dutifully did my obligation up to Tuesday. Starting Wednesday I started to forget about it.

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The contracts of my officemates are ending this month. Two of them extended but only one for the long term. The sad part is that the officemates who will remain are the non-slackers. When we had lunch today both of them are late(for lunch) because of work.

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I think I am cursed with officemates who never eat on time. When I was in UP I need to tell my student assistants that its lunch time at 11:30am. They take a very long time to say goodbye to their BFs. By 12 they are done saying goodbye.

In the former company I worked for, I needed to drag some of my lunchmates because they are workaholic. Now I do the same. It takes a lot of cajoling before they rise to their seat. The only reason I do not complain that much is that I eat very slow and I don’t like eating alone.

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Speaking of being alone, I learned that my co-worker in another part of the word is quitting. The problem is that we are only two designers on this group of modules that we are working on. A month ago, my only teammate who is in the same physical office as me, left.

I think I am a good teammate. Everyone who works with me finds a better opportunity.

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On Language and Dialects

One of the most stupid thing that the Philippine education system should correct is the definition of language and dialect. It is seldom that you will meet someone who knows that Tagalog, Cebuano, Kapampangan, Ilonggo etc are languages and not dialects. A dialect is a slight variation of a language(British English, Australian English). Basically you can understand each other even if you speak different dialects of a language.

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In programming languages dialects also exists. PL/SQL and Transact-SQL are both dialects of SQL. They have minor differences but they are both SQL. Lisp also has its own dialects(Scheme, Common Lisp).

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Another thing that I find funny is the concept of purista(purist). There is no such thing as a pure Tagalog because a language evolves. Formal <insert language here> right now will not be the same formal <insert language here> in the next hundred years. I really find it funny that teachers tell their students that in Filipino a chair is upuan while in Tagalog it is salongpwet. The question is, does the word salongpwet really exists? Was it really used before and not a recent invention? My grandfather calls a chair upuan or silya. If something is just invented recently how can it be considered pure?

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Is Filipino and Tagalog the same?

Send someone who speaks Filipino(the language) back in time(maybe a hundred years when we are sure that Pilipino and Filipino does not exist yet) and let him speak with the Filipinos of that time.

QED

When did we forget our dreams?*

My manager and I had a talk last week. He was a bit disappointed that I do not know many things about the project. I do not know those change process and the number of those bugs in SIT. I just told him that there are too many emails and sometimes I don’t have the time to read it. The truth is I don’t really care and I don’t want to care. I want to concentrate on coding and designing.

The conversation dragged on. What he wanted was for me to do some other things not related to coding and designing. He wanted me to develop business analyst skills. And he wanted me to want it. He wants me to ask for it. It is some sort of a compliance technique. If I asked for it I will be responsible for it. If I ask for it I could not blame him if I have too many things to do.

He was a bit angry when he learned that: (1) I would not do extra work(business analyst work) voluntarily if it is not asked of me (2) I want to spend more time on non-work related things and (3) no plan to climb the corporate ladder. He also asked me what is my value in the team and why should they keep me. I wanted to answer that he should ask it to himself. The only question I need to answer is why would I want to stay.

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He also said that anyone can code. He is right. Anyone can code, but monkeys can also manage.

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*I got the title from xkcd.

I recently changed role. From a programmer, I became a designer. I suspect that its because of my English skills(among my colleagues only the more senior ones have good English) and not really my knowledge on the project and the framework we are using. With only five months into the project and no training whatsoever on the framework we are using, I doubt if I qualify to be a designer. I think they just needed someone to write the design specification They even assigned me to a different module of the project. Its was my first time to see those APIs and tools. Its not the skills that I don’t have but the knowledge on the API and on the problem domain. I am driving blindly at this point.

My first assignment was to revise a design specification. All is going well until the development stage. The developer did not obey the specification. He has some good reasons. I did made some mistakes like not checking if the static method is public and not reading the code thoroughly. But the others are really show-stoppers. They did not tell me that I can not use the old scripts because it is already not supported. They did never told me that the class that is supplying the connection to the database is also not supported. Its a freaking utility class that I assumed that I should not even care about its implementation. The developer who I was working with knows more about the what we are doing(warts and all). Compounding the problem is the fact that all of the knowledgeable developers are in a different location. The new programmers(we are only two here) are isolated. Knowledge flow is a bit limited.

Enough ranting for now. A lot of fire fighting is needed tomorrow.

Quo Vadis

Kakapasok ko pa lang sa kwarto ko pagkatapos kong maghapunan ng biglang may tumawag. Tiga-opisina. Dapat daw kumpletuhin ko yung time sheet kasi deadline daw. Teka lang. Naisip ko. Tapos na ako nung Biyernes pa. Sabi nang kausap ko wala daw ako entry nung April 1 at ako na lang ang natitirang hindi nagpasok ng oras ko. Err.. Linggo yun diba?

Mukhang seryoso sila dahil ilang beses akong tinawagan at pati amo ko tumawag din. Sinubukan kong mag-login sa laptop ng kasambahay ko pero hindi rin umumbra. Hindi na gumagana yung password ko. Hindi ko alam kung bakit. Gumamit na lang sila ng supervisor password. Ang tanong ng amo ko: Bakit mo nakalimutan? Hindi ko lang masabi na: Anong klaseng sistema ba yan na para sa buwan ng Marso kailangan akong magpasok para sa unang araw ng Abril na tumapat pa sa Linggo?

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Hindi lang dun nagtatapos ang kamalasan ko. Pero ito kasalanan ko na. Hindi ako nag-submit ng timesheet(na naglalaman ng breakdown ng trinabaho ko para sa isang linggo) sa loob ng dalawang buwan. Putsa. Nag-email yung team lead namin nung lunes na kumpletuhin na daw namin ng Byernes.

Kung sakaling makita nyo ako sa Pinas. Alam nyo na ang nangyari. Natanggal ako sa trabaho dahil sa kulang kulang na timesheet.

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Hindi lang dyan nagtatapos ang kamalasan ko. Medyo naghihigpit na ngayon sa opisina. Bawal na ang hindi approved software(libre man o hindi). Nakatanggap ako ng email kaninang umaga. Ayon daw sa kanilang scanning may Winamp daw ako. May unlicensed sofware daw ako. Teka, libre ang Winamp diba?

Dahil minana ko lang yung desktop hinanap ko sa Program Files folder. Wala. Tiningnan ko sa Add/Remove programs. Wala din. Sinagot ko sa email na wala akong Winamp. Ang sagot sa akin mag-log daw ako ng tiket para tanggalin ng desktop support(kasi wala kaming admin rights). Sumunod na lang ako. Sasagutin ko sana ng: Paano tatanggalin ang isang bagay na wala naman? Pero wag na lang. Baka humaba pa ang istorya.

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Anong natutunan ko sa mga pangyayaring ito? Hirap talaga ako sa “corporate environment”.

Bad trip talaga yung amo ko nitong nakaraang mga araw. Di ko mawari kung bakit nya ako pinag-iinitan. Dalawang beses nya akong pinuna dahil gala daw ako ng gala sa opisina. Tinanong din nya kung bakit ako mukhang laging masaya at tawa ng tawa gayong may problema sa project. Problema na nga problemahin ko pa ba. Higit sa lahat kakaiba ang ngiti nya kaninang umaga nang inabutan nya akong nagkakape at kumakain ng Yan Yan. Para bang sinasabi nya na dapat akong nagtatrabaho at hindi nagme-merienda.

Tingin ko dahil hindi nya kasi ako nakikitang “under pressure”. Pasensya sya. Trabaho lang yan. Walang dahilan para kunsumihin ang sarili ko. Basta ginawa ko ang dapat kong gawin sapat na yun. Hindi bale sana kung para sa “world peace” o para sa Inang bayan ang project namin.

The next big thing

I found this interesting article in one of my yahoo groups. The author hoped that the next big thing in software engineering is professionalism. One of the things that struck me was this quote:

One would think that a degree in computer science might mean that the graduate could write code. One would be wrong. Many CS grads wrote little or no code in order to get their degrees. I find this astounding; but nevertheless it is true. The CS degree means very little in terms of programming ability.

I taught two computer science subjects and from my experience the above quote is so true. In one of my class some students asked me to lower the percentage of the programming part, which is open notes/books by the way, of the exam. It was always fifty percent of the exam. The other half is the written exam.

I do not know the reason for their aversion to coding.They took Computer Science and although Computer Science is not all about coding(some part of it is actually Math), you should be at least be a decent programmer.