Joel, FogBugz, Kiln … etc

Joel Spolsky, yeah the Joel on Software guy, was here in London this week, on Thursday to be exact, as part of his world tour. He has been to different cities of the world showing his products FogBugz, a project management software, and Kiln, a distributed version control system.

I signed up for it sometime ago, only to learn recently that his half day event has coincided with a shift of development methodology at my workplace. We have recently started using Scrum, and hence are looking for a new project management tool, that supports Scrum. We are trying a couple of them, and are still interested in any better options. So it was a good oppurtunity to have a first hand look at FogBugz, and also see if we might be iterested in shifting to Kiln as well, as compared to Subversion (SVN), which we currently use.

I was on my way to the Oval, home to Surrey County Cricket Club, he was using one of the conference venues at the Oval, when I saw a group of 3 guys standing on the other side of compartment of Northern Line. I dont know how & why, but from my first look, I knew they are developers and are going to the same place as I was And guess what, they actually were developers and they actually did go to the same place. As they say in Urdu, Dil ko dil se raah hoti he, I realized, we developers, have a sense of brotherhood. And we recognize each other regardless of racial, linguistic or geographical background. It was a good feeling.

Anyway, it was scheduled for 9 in morning, and we were greeted with hot tea and cofee, orange juice and freshly baked brownies. There were almost 200-250 people in the refreshments’ room. I picked a brownie, took a glass of juice, and looked for some empty space. There were only 2 people on the table I chose, one of them being a tester for hosted web applications. He was delighted as I jumped in the discussion and talked about the hosted PM software we were using; “you see, here comes another one”, was his response

Khair, after a while we headed towards the conference hall, where a soon-to-crash countdown application was running a clock, which soon converted into a count down screen. And before it did convert, Mr Spolsky appeared from right side and reached for the rostrum. And as the count down ended, the application crashed with BSOD, which we would realize in a while was a fake one. He used this as a bug-report to kick off his demostration of FogBugz.

I kinda liked FogBugz, and its seemless integration with Kiln, their version control product, which is based on Mercurial. The concept is, sort of, similar to Microsoft’s Team System, as you can track a bug/feature from the time it was reported till the time it was integrated into the source code, and released to the customer, in every aspect, which is cool. FogBugz does not have support for Scrum natively, but they have a plugin architecture, and there is a Scrum plugin available that you can use for it to work.

The demonstration was interesting, and Joel is a good speaker, as he kept the attendees still interested in his talk till the end, which is a quality. He was followed by another guy from FogGreek who ran a Kiln university, describing distributed version control and how Kiln does it in detail. I was not very impressed by Kiln as such, I mean its OK if you have to compare it against SVN for example except its branching  support, which is really really good. It makes branching so seemless and intiutive. Although the guy presenting Kiln was so much keen on thrashing SVN and likes in comparison to Kiln, but we didnt buy much of his arguments.

As the Oval, the conference venue, is a stadium, and hosts cricket matches as well; on my way out I spotted the Pakistan room on one of the sign boards, and I couldnt resist taking a picture

Pakistan Room at the Oval

 

I think I was back in office by 12:30 pm, to give some expert opinion on FogBugz

Semi-finalist

As part of a company-wide promote-social-interaction intiative, every department is holding an indoor game competition. So far we had Table Tennis and Darts. I didnt play Table Tennis, but I did play Darts.

I hadn’t played darts before this, and the only information I had about it was “it has something to do with numbers.”

It was around 20-25 people who registered interest. There was an initial screening, to select 16 players to play pool matches. I was given 3 shots, and without any clue of what I am doing, I tried my shots, and was told I scored 20, yes you can laugh And it was this 20 that scored me a position for the pool matches, although I was the least scorer, that is no 16.

I was happy, I was staying.

Now, I was partnered with our QA Manager to play the pool game. I had no idea that we are competing against each other, I, on the other hand, thought we are a pair, and I apoligized to him in advance, saying that I might not be helpful as I am a newbie

I kept on throwing my darts without much worry, only to learn at the end that I have won. I was a little amazed to hear this, as I thought we are a pair. But I was told that we were competing.  So far so good ….

My manager was standing nearby, and he had played some darts in past, so I started inquiring him about the game. I had developed interest now, as I had won a game now .

He was kind enough to explain the game to me, and as we talked, and I watched the poeple playing, I began to make sense out of it. By the end of our conversation, I knew what darts was all about. Thanks to him.

By now, the pool games were over, and names were anounced for the quarter finals. Lo and behold! I was competing against my manager yes the same guy who was teaching me about the game a while ago.

So we played, and guess what … I won Yes, to everybody’s surprise, I won. I was through to semis.

In semi-final, I was competing against a veterian, who would win the final in 20-30 minutes from now. It started quite dramatically, as I scored a triple 17, a triple 16, and a 6, with a total of 105 in one go, my darts-career-highest so far And my partner in the game was like :O … how can you do that to me … he was a little serious into the game. I was not.

He was still at 190, when I needed 24 to finish off. An easy game it seemed so far, with everybody around in a shock, and I kinda enjoyed that moment almost on the verge of getting into the final. But then … you are not supposed to get into final on your very first day in the game.

I went on a bust. I was not worried as I had time. But then, I stayed at 24, as my partner made it to 20 I think. And then … I stayed at 24, and he won He was really happy.

So was I

It was not a bad start at all.

communiK | May 2008

We sent out the 3rd issue last weekend.

We need authors. In case you feel like writing something useful, technical or non-technical, take time to visit us, and drop a line. We’ll be in touch.

Farewell guys

Yeah today we bid farewell to Umair, Ejaz & Rizwan. They are leaving for good.

For the farewell party, a lunch was arranged at a nearby restaurant.

Food was good, so was the service.Our tables were ready by the time we arrived. We started at sharp 1, and ended at sharp 2 The match, between India & Pakistan was on, and the guys sitting near to the screen were kind enough to share their expert-opinions on condition of the pitch.

Yet it was not all that was good. There was that blue-eyed security-gaurd filtering as to which cars should go to hotel parking and which should be parked on the pavement. Quite frustrating. And they had no washrooms available for Tai-Pan, amazing huh? You claim to be among the top brass hotels in Pakistan, and you don’t have a washroom available for the restaurant. And because of some bla-bla conference going on, you have to go all the way from outer gate to the lobby to see one. Also watch for that 2o Rs. charity that they include in your bill by default. If you are keen enough to have read those tiny cards placed on the tables mentioning about the charity, you can have it removed form the bill, they will charge you otherwise.

After lunch, we had three dozes of “Awaam-se-Khitaab” by each of the-leaving-guys. This is a centuries old tradition here, that we ask for a doze of this address. Although no sense-making-stuff is expected to be delivered, but just for the fun of it And not to mention, sometimes people really get emotional in their khitaabs.

And yes, after going through all this stuff, everybody came yelling, “Oey itney pese lagwa deye”, “aur koi jagah nahi thi farewell dene ke leye”, “aenda hum koi farewell nahi den ge” and the stuff:)

I think we are no more going to have parties at Tai-Pan, although we never had many, and the guys over there: you just lost a good lot of customers.

Get the smart guys in …

We are planning to organize a series of Talent Hunt shows at the universities of the capital. Yes, on the spot screening and interviews. Students will be short listed and somewhat graded, the shortlisted ones will be called for in-campus interview based on their grading. And we expect to get the best minds of graduating classes across the capital, even before they make it to the market

In Pakistan, in Software Development industry, there might be few, or none, companies who are actually and actively concerned about the quality of people they hire or they keep. Although every company scrutinize the candidates in interview, and filter out the best among the applicants, but what about the ones who were a lot better and they didn’t happen to apply for the post. Yes you have to go and get them from their doorsteps. Its seriously like this. If this seems crazy to you, you better spend sometime with Joel Spolsky. This talent hunt series is a doorstep project.

We’ll, probably start with Islamic, yeah my Alma Matter. And we’ll, probably, be there in next week. I will update this post, once we are decided on the calender.

I’ll really appreciate any feedback if you have been into such workshops before. As for us, this is first-time.