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 My First Official "Coding Horror" Encounter Back in College, I have a friend who’s programming prowess is so godly that it can easily match mine. He is a C++ Junkie and belongs to the Java Cult. His mental agility is so great that he can beat me in writing complex algorithms anytime of the day. In fact, I chose him to be the “Architect” for our project in Compiler Theory Class (Kompayler Studio 2008: The First Tagalog Kompayler, Programming Language and IDE). He is THAT great of a programmer… BUT
Being a Great Programmer is not the same as being a Great Software Developer
“Aren’t programming and software development the same?” Uhhmm, NO. Programming is just a single part of Software Development. Software Development, on the other hand, is an entirely different song and dance.
In one of our converstations, I told him that instead of reading books about programming he should try to read books about software development. I gave him that advice not because I want him to suck in programming (I’m not that envious). I gave him that advice because I want him to realize that programming alone won’t make a great software product and that programming prowess alone won’t give him the best programming job around… at least here in the Philippines.
One of our main differences is reflected on how we write code (which eventually shows in our software). For example, say that we have a project that requires us to deliver a Simple Number Sorting Application that will ask the user to input 50 numbers and sort it. This project is resource constrained in such a way that we need to deliver it in 2 days.
Continue reading “Coding Horror 01: Readability vs Efficiency” »
I know. Philippines is not really a Third World Country. Someone from the IMF or the World Bank decided to promote us to a “Developing Country”.
But if you happen to be part of the new “Knowledge Worker” workforce, you are probably working somewhere in Makati, Ortigas or Taguig. Day in and Day out, all I see are these huge office buildings and sometimes, it makes me forget that we were once a Third World Country. Try it, go to The Fort Global City. 
 Makati Skyline at Night by "Rawrage" Oh, just some random ramblings. Anyway, there will be no article about Software Development this week as I will be attending a 3-day seminar about Leadership in Tagaytay hosted by Accenture. 
Yay! I just stole the top search result for my name in Google. Try to search for Cristopher Ian Uy and hit “I’m Feeling Lucky” and you will be directed here!
 Top 1 result in Google! I have not really believed in those “free” SEO optimization tools. But it works! In fact, I just bought the domain 2 weeks ago and upped this blog just a couple of days ago and Google is already crawling my site.
Continue reading “Google Loves Me” »
 Democrats! Just a quick note that I have re-upped our section site on my server! Everything looks crappy though since I haven’t touched/edited anything for historical sake (To sorta remind everyone how Web 1.0 looked like).
Visit the site @ http://ianuy.com/democrats/
BTW, you can also watch the Grad. Ball coverage there. 
Oh sweet memories.
 Migration Successful! F*ck Multiply! How hard could it be to add an export function? It took me 4 hours just to manually migrate 9 posts and it does not *look* good.
Anyway, all of the 9 posts below are from my old blog at Multiply. Please forgive the tiny font size, I’m still trying to figure out how to change the font style of my posts. As of the moment, I’m using Windows Live Writer to publish my posts as it provides an easier way to change font styles.
All of my new blog posts will be posted here. I will still be maintaining my old blog over at Multiply but I will only post excerpts there that will link to the full post here.
By the way, if you have any HDR images of the Metro Manila skyline (Makati, Ayala, Taguig, Ortigas), please send me a high-resolution copy and I will turn that into a beautiful banner that I can use. Don’t worry, I’ll credit you.
How do you guys like my logo?
Just a day after graduation, I received a congratulatory note from the Director of Software Development at work. The email is addressed to the whole software development department and it goes something like:
“Congratulations in accomplishing another milestone in your life. Now, there’s a new milestone that you need to accomplish…”
DEADLINES!
Continue reading “Deadlines: I used to love them” »
Have you ever attended one of those Transformational Learning programs? The ones that will make you reflect deep and hard about your life to the point that it will change how you see the world? I have.
 After sending me to a comprehensive 3-day technical training for Windows Communication Framework, my company have decided to send me to a 3-day non-technical training called 7 Habits for Highly Effective People Signature Program at the Ateneo Professional Schools, Center for Leadership and Change in Makati.
At first, I thought that it will be a big waste of my and my company’s time if I attend this training during this hectic months. Habits? C’mon! I don’t need those to spew out quality codes! Besides, I already have habits even if they are not the best ones around. That’s what I thought and before I knew it…
I was in for the biggest shock of my life!
On April 17, 2009, I will be attending a leadership seminar sponsored by Accenture Philippines. Accenture Student Leadership Conference is a 3-day seminar that will be held somewhere in Tagaytay.
 According to Accenture’s website, participants will “learn about key Accenture leadership contribution areas by being value creators, business operators, and people developers through seminars and fun activities… They will also hear first-hand testimonials from some of the top Accenture Senior Executives, Managers, and Leads from various workforces and projects”.
If you have attended at least one leadership seminar in your life, you know that it will be full of ego-massaging and morale-boosting talks from some senior-management guy from some Fortune/Global 500 company. And some funny “group dynamics” that the event coordinators will link to a certain “leadership” quality but in reality, it will just make you tired and sweaty. I have yet to attend a leadership seminar that will really teach me on how to be a really good leader. Accenture SLC… here’s hoping!
After spending almost 2 months at work without actually doing anything that barely resembles programming, I was finally sent to a training at an outsourced training company in Makati.
The training is about Windows Communication Framework or WCF — Microsoft’s answer to building Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA). Gone were the days of Web Services, more so, socket programming! It’s all abstracted now. Yay for lame programmers!
But anyway, the training was GREAT! I was able to learn the ins and outs of WCF. But what’s interesting is that I learned a new “way” to do rollbacks automatically! It’s called…
TRANSACTIONS!
When I was in College, I was amazed that the suits (”Business People”) are so willing to pay me good money just to spew out pieces of code that would eventually end up in a crappy system somewhere. Well, that was the time when I thought that working as programmer is just about programming. Or, that was the time when I believe that majority of a programmer’s time would be spent writing code… building stuffs.
Nowadays, when people ask me about my typical day at work, I always tell them that I’m working on a Localization Project. Most often than not, the common reply is “What’s that? Does it involve programming?” Yes, it involves “programming”, if you consider replacing a bunch of strings to their localized equivalent as “programming”.
As Mike Rowe will put it…
Localization… It’s a dirty job!
Why is it a dirty job, you ask? Consider the English phrase “Preview and Spell Check”. Now let’s see how it will translate to different languages:
French: Prévision et contrôle de charme
German: Vorbetrachtung und Rechtschreibüberprüfung
Russian: ??????????????? ???????? ? ???????? ????????????
Continue reading “Localization: A Programmer’s Dirty Job” »
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