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When I was an Intern at a large Global 500 company, my major responsibility is to deliver a Software Delivery process that uses the software engineering practice called Continuous Integration. In simple terms, I am responsible for a project to create and setup a Continuous Integration Build Server that will be used to “build” the company’s products.
During those days, when I hear the word “build” or “compile”, the first thing that comes into mind is to press the F5 button. Ever since I started programming, when someone asks me for a copy of my program or if I need to distribute the “binaries” of my program, all I do is press the F5 button to create an EXE (sometimes with a DLL), then browse to the output folder(Bin) and copy the binaries. Suffice to say, that is my “Software Delivery” process however crude it is.
In College, I got a little bit more sophisticated. My major projects are all carefully packaged in a very neat MSI installer — but that is just for the major projects. Most of my standalone tools are still made using the “Press F5 button to build” method. 
Continue reading “The Importance of a Dedicated Build Machine” »
EDIT: It was not my intention to offend people, I just want to share my opinion in my personal blog. Again, If I have offended you, I apologize. 
I apologize for the sudden lack of software development updates. Its just that I got hit by the Korean Fever (no, its not a pandemic Flu! ) So please forgive this non-programming blog post.
 Girls Generation My addiction to all things Korean started when my Ex showed me a cute music video of a South Korean nine-member girl group called Girls Generation (SNSD/????). At first, I got very annoyed with the crazy jingle, but I instantly recognized the cuteness of the video. Now, I have a total of 4 GB of SNSD videos (meticulously stolen from Youtube), their complete discography on my Phone, and SNSD Ringtones. I am so addicted to them that I even have my four office monitors with SNSD wallpapers and SNSD Screensavers. I even watch and listen to my SNSD videos while working. My colleague, too, is also uber addicted to them and he says that the video increases his productivity! 
To make my addiction worse, my brother who is addicted to Korean and Japanese Dramas, introduced me to Boys Before Flowers – the Korean drama adaptation of the Japanese manga Hana Yori Dango. After watching the said video, I suddenly want a Korean Hairstyle and a wardrobe makeover. Now, my TV set is locked-in to KBS. (And somebody please remind me to call Sky Cable to inquire YTF they removed Arirang from my TV Listing).
To my curiosity, I researched about the history of South Korea, the culture of South Korea and the economy of South Korea. And one thing was apparent, South Koreans love their country. They are proud of their lineage. They are both protectors of their future and guardians of their past. Just like the Japanese, they are nationalistic.
So it begs the question, Why are they Nationalistic and Why Filipinos are not? After sometime thinking bout this, I arrived at a simple answer.
Because they have something to be proud of!
Continue reading “On Filipino Nationalism (Or My pathetic explanation on Why Filipinos are not nationalistic)” »
 ASP.NET Migration Problem If you’ve read my previous blog post, I talked about some of the problems encountered while migrating some of our web applications from .NET 1.1 to .NET 2.0. Well, those products are now handed off to the Test Department for their routine torture.
Just a couple of days after the hand-off (Hand-off to Test or HOTT), the tester who is testing the product filed two (2) Tracks (Incident/Bug/Problem). Since I am the only developer working on the product, all of the tracks will automatically be assigned to me. The said tracks that were filed have the same “type” of problem.
When browsing for a file (Backup File / File Upload), the value of the Textbox would change back to its default value when the page re-loads.
Continue reading “ASP.NET 1.X to ASP.NET 2.0 Migration Postback Problem” »
 Do you know how much Programmer's Blood it cost to put this tiny sticker in a Software Box? In my previous blog post, I’ve mentioned that I’m working on a project to migrate an entire product line to Vista. What I meant by that is that I am responsible for making sure that our current product will run properly on Windows Vista. To guarantee that it is indeed Running Properly it should behave *exactly* like it behaves in Windows XP. In simple terms, my entire job security is riding on making our products compatible with Microsoft’s failed attempt at a MAC-ish Operating System and with Microsoft’s successful attempt (a first in their history) to make their operating system NOT backward compatible with older applications. So much for Raymond Chen’s camp undying obsession with backward compatibility.
This products that I’m talking about are a set of Web Applications written in ASP.NET version 1.1. This web applications are as old as Windows XP. I checked its File Modification History in our TFS repository and the last time that anyone have touched its code base is in 2005 — and that’s just for a minor code modification to fix a bug. I believe this apps were written way way back in 2004 — when I was in Third Year High School!
To make this products compatible with Vista, there are a couple of steps that had to be done. I’ll enumerate each steps and what it takes to accomplish them.
Continue reading “Migration: Why Developers Hate Microsoft or Why Developers Hate Vista or My First Encounter how Microsoft can Break your Software” »
While having dinner with my teammates at the Shangri-La Plaza, we had a nostalgic conversation about our adventures in technology, particularly in programming. Just a bunch of geeks talking about geeky stuffs on a Friday night. 
According to our Project Lead, he started his programming adventure by writing programs in BASIC on an Intel 486 computer a Sharp MZ80 Series (2 Mhz and 24KB of RAM). He also mentioned that he had once used a cassette tape to store his programs. He is that old (80+ years old in Programmer Years). Another teammate told me that his programming adventure started when he first discovered Visual Basic. For me, my programming adventure began when my elementary professor taught us Web Development (as in HTML) way way back in 1999. 1999 was the time when having an E-Mail account can get you laid  . *I know, HTML is not programming! STOP BOTHERING ME*
After sometime reminiscing the days of Web 1.0, Visual Basic 4, Dial-Up Internet, mIRC, Hacked Unix Shell Accounts, Hacked AOL accounts and the Borland Turbo C Compilers, I suddenly brought up the topic of programming milestones — Those important events in your programming life that marks an important transformation. Those paradigm-shifting events that changed your geeky life forever. What’s interesting with this conversation is that everyone in the table can relate to each others milestones, its like everyone have the same programming milestones. Maybe all programmers have the same set of programming milestones? Like in life (as in real life), where we consider both College Graduation and Marriage as milestones.
Continue reading “What are your Programming Milestones?” »
 My First Official "Coding Horror" Encounter Back in College, I have a friend who’s programming prowess is so godly that it can surpass or 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” »
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” »
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!
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” »
Lo and Behold, I will now commit geeky heresy by confessing that…
“Programming is NOT a talent”
 Dummies can learn programming, too. We, the nerds and the geeks, would like to believe that programming is a talent. That programming is… Something special. Something that cannot be learned fully. Something inherent — a gift from the gods. We would like to believe that programmers are born – not made.
Continue reading “What makes a great programmer?” »
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