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

The Footbal Fever

Today, I came back from Jumma prayer, only to find half of the office empty. I was a little amazed untill I recalled a lunchtime conversation about Football Worldcup. Today was the first match between South Africa & Mexico. And yes, you got it right, all of the missing people had gone home to watch football. It reminded me of deserted streets in Pakistan, whenever there was a Pakistan-India cricket match. But taking time off, from office, to watch football, was new for me.

From a Pakistani’s prospective, football is the cricket of England. Probably a little more than that. They are just crazy about it. Butt sb used to qoute a very interesting statement by Bill Shankly:

“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.”

Well, I can see that

In morning I received an email from HR requesting people not to stream the football matches, as it may choke the internet bandwidth. “We gonna connect a computer to the projector in one of the conference rooms, and you can go and watch there instead”, she said. Yes, that was official. I was not amazed to read this, as a couple of days back, I had read a complete article in Evening Standard, about how office networks are going to choke during Football Worldcup, as people watch the matches online during office hours.

It was the talk of the day, all over England, even at the swimming pool where I am taking my swimming sessions these days. There was a guy from Algeria, who was very supportive of his country, off course, and wanted me to support Algeria as well, myself being a Muslim, and Algeria being the only Muslim side playing in the tournament. And I agreed to him.

Ohh, and there was an English flag hung on the wall of the pool as well. Well you see English flag everywhere nowadays, doors, windows, cars, everywhere.

Tomorrow is a big game; first English match of the World Cup. Lets see how its start for England.

And yes, there still are a lot of people who are not that crazy about football, as half of the office was present anyway

PS: I was probably the only person in my office, who was happy that England has won the Twenty20 cup from Australia  Cricket: nobody cares.

Not a bug

I remember, and I hope, if you have been at Ult, you’d remember too, NOT-A-BUG (NAB). It was always fun to find out an issue to be NAB, and marking it as such. Yes Umar, you can grind your teeth, but it was fun thats just being a developer. Sometimes it was quite a task to make your point across, particulary with some QAEs, yes you are right, I am talking about that QAE , but it was still fun Sometimes you needed help from IG/Bilz, but it was still fun

And just yesterday, when I kicked out 3rd bug, in a row, to be NAB, I realized, it still is fun Its a different story, though, that its the first time I had this oppurtunity in almost a year I have spent at this company. Although I wasn’t doing much with bugs, and concentrating on certain other things, but still.

Anwyay, we almost kicked out winters towards the end of January, here in London, with tempratures as high as 12 centigrade, but it has striken back. There has been short snow showers, bringing temprature back to freezing. And its chilli as anything outside.

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.

The stuffy wars

Somedays back, I was trying to figure out something, at my workplace, concentrating at my screen, when something just passed by my head. It just missed me.

When I looked in the direction of sound, it was a stuffed toy, that fell few feet away.

No, there wasn’t any fight going on, a war rather … As I was looking in that direction, another stuffy toy was thrown back, by another colleague, who was supposedly the target of previous strike.

And it was not just that day. There are almost a dozen of such toys, on the tables of 3-4 guys, and you never know when something just falls over you, and you see the guy passing by as if nothing happened. If you look at him, he would be like, whaat? Ohh, where did it come from? May be from the ceiling …?

I haven’t been a target as yet, as I am not into the circle as yet, but it just makes you feel light to see the stuff flying around in a professional environment It reminds me of Ult-A, when we would fly the paper-planes in office

Those were the days …

the new guy in dev

Today was my first day at my new job. Unexpectedly, a busy day, but a good day.

I only got introduced to dev and qa teams, and a couple of other guys , by my manager. Remaining introductions are scheduled for Wednesday. And yes this is what I heard from most of the guys, “ohh he is that new guy in dev” . I hope I didnt disappoint them

My boss was kind enough to take me to a halal food shop, where they sell currys, for lunch. And I was a bit surprized when he asked, “Do you prefer naan over chappati?”, when I was having a naan with chiken karahi. I mean he had quite good knowledge of Pakistani/Indian food, and he understood my concern for halal food, myself being a Muslim, by himself. And it was not just him, another guy from dev, with whom we sat in office-eating-space/kitchen, knew about a fine Pakistani restaurant recently opened somewhere nearby. I am feeling the difference between Bristol and London

The only strange thing I could spot was the printed charts over the wall, one for different kind of tomatoes, one for different kinds of cows and another for different kinds of corps,  just like the ones we used to do for inspection days in school And there was one with dogs as well.

I have a big table with two LCDs. Its a Core 2 DUO. I didnt check the RAM yet.

Anyway … lets see whats next for me here … and lets hope it be the good …

The Sugar Relationship

Somehow, once in a week or a couple of them, when I get to make some tea for myself in afternoon, in my office kitchen, I find sugar out of stock.

We occupy two floors of a building, and as the groceries are stored on upper floor, I have to go to 3rd floor kitchen to get some.

First time when I went to grab some sugar, myself being a new-hire, I asked the first guy I could find after leaving kitchen door, about where to find sugar. And he, being kind enough, walked me to the kitchen saying, let’s see Finance Director’s knowledge of where-to-find-sugar. Yup, he was Finance Director And he was actually able to locate some sugar in a far-away cabnet.

Now, most of the times, when I get to get some sugar, I get to see him. He is a nice chap, and we get to talk different things about sugar most of the times we meet.

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.