Subbu's Blog

Knowing or unknowingly I wished few things to do before I die, one among them was to climb Tirumala by walking along the foot steps.
I reached tirupathi on a Wednesday noon, got a local bus till alipiri, walked to the entrance of footpath, which was like a small underpass. Devotees removed their slippers and break coconut to start the journey. Total climb distance is around 11km. First leg of journey is very challenging and put you to very high stress and energy consuming. Steps are steeper and continuous, thanks to small resting pavements,stones and un obstructing shops. There are plenty of drinking,cooling water spouts and clean restrooms as well. The footpath is clean thanks to the maintenance of TTD devasthanam. Eat light (non oily foods) and also carry healthy snacks and water.
First 1000 steps can be covered in a breeze, but next 500 or 600 will take twice the previous time. Again keep the pace have frequent breaks for every 40 steps or so. The big milestone in this journey is reaching Kaali gopuram, where tokens for free daarshan,tonsuring and accommodation is provided. I utilized the free darshan which takes faster in the sarva darshan queue compared to anyother paid tickets (you see a benefit right here itself).
After Kaali gopuram, next 30 45 mins of walk is rather flat and enjoyable. In this leg you can see Deers from SV zoo within the fence.
The final leg, not as challenging as first one but gives your leg muscles a tough time, as you are stretching it suddenly after so much relaxation. In this part 1 2 km walk is along the road without protection from downstream vehicles from Tirumala. There is a slippery part as well. Again you will enter the footpath, guarded route till you reach the garuda statue at Tirumala. Devotees lite camphor and bring this journey to an end.
Personally, I enjoyed as it gave relaxation to mind and body. Totally it took 4 hours for me to climb the 11 km footpath.
I recount one episode of my Tirumala visit, where I boasted to my colleague that I visit Tirumala at will, he was seriously advising me that its not that easy and you should have a calling, I some what rubbished his claim. After few days, the same year I planned on a diwali day assuming no one will come that day. On reaching tirupathi I realized I was a fool, added to that darshan counter or ticket mechanism was changed, I waited in a queue for 6 hours even to get a ticket, which I couldn't, frustrated and walked out. I decided to reach Tirumala, pray from outside and return home. I prayed outside the temple looking at the vimanam from outside.
Soon after went to restaurant which I always go whenever I go to Tirumala, had food and when I was paying the bill I saw a wallpaper with these words
"Darshan is not what you get, it is what he (Lord) gives", on seing this I felt someone really slapped me.
From that time onwards I started believing that one can  get or can buy darshan by paying big tickets, but only his wish to see us ,not ours.

இப்பதிவில் ஆக்டபஸ் பால் என்பதற்கு பதிலாக, பாலி என்று ஒரு சவுகிரியத்திர்காக உபயோக படுத்தி உள்ளேன்.

கால்பந்து உலகக் கோப்பயில் வெற்றி பெரும் அணியினை துல்லியமாக கணித்து, அனைவரின் பாராட்டும் பெற்ற ஆக்டபஸ் பாலி இந்தியாவில்

சுற்றுபயணம் மேற்கொள்கிறது ( தொடரும் செய்திகள் அனைத்தும் கற்பனையே!!!)

சுற்றுப்பயணத்தின் முதல் கட்டமாக, தில்லியில்  மரியாதை நிமித்தமாக, சோனியா, மன்மோகன் சிங் ஆகியோரை சந்திக்கிறது. பாஜாக

செய்தி தொடர்பாளர் இச்-சந்திப்பை கடுமையாக எதிர்துள்ளது. “விலைவாசி உயர்வுக்கும், தேசிய பாதுகாப்பிர்க்கும் எதிரானது” என்று கருத்து தெரிவிக்க பட்டுள்ளது.

பின்னர், மும்பை வந்த பாலி-க்கு பாலிவுட் நட்சத்திரங்கள் வரவேற்றனர். சிவ சேனை தலைவர்,பால்.. ஆக்டபஸ் பாலி மராட்டிய வீரணுக்கு சமமானது என பாராட்டினார்.

சென்னைக்கு வந்த பாலி-க்கு கலைஞர் மஞ்சள் துண்டு அணிவித்தார், பின்னர் தான் வசிக்கும் தெரு-வுக்கு கோ”பாலி”புரம் என்று பெயர்

சூட்டினார். மேலும்,பாலி-யின் மூதாதயர் தமிழர் என்றும், சங்க- காலத்தில், பூம்புகார் கடலில் வசித்த-தாக,புறனானூறு பாட்டை

மேற்கோள் காட்டினார். வள்ளுவர் கோட்டத்தில், வாலி-வைரமுத்து புடை சூழ “உலக கோப்பை வென்றது பாலி-யா அல்லது ஸ்பைனா” என்ற தலைபில் பட்டிமன்றம் நடைபெற்றது.

இதை கண்டு வெகுண்டு எழுந்த வைகோ, தமிழின துரோகியான ராஜ பக்‌ஷேவை இரு கரம் கொண்ட ஆக்டோபஸ் என்று கர்ஜித்தார்.
ராமதாஸ், பாலி-யை  தான் வளர்ந்த ஜெர்மனிக்கே துரோகம் செய்தது “பச்சை துரோகம்”,என்று வர்ணித்தார்.

ஜெயலலிதா,கொட- நாட்டிலிருந்து, “பாலி, கருணாநிதி குடும்ப அரசியலின் இன்னும் ஒரு வாரிசு” என்றார்.

திடீர் என தமிழ் திரை உலகம் பாலிக்கு பாராட்டு விழா ஏர்பாடு செய்தது.

தளபதி விஜய்,தனது சுரா, ஆமை படங்கள் ஊத்தி கொண்டதால், பாலி-யுடன் அடுத்த படம் “பாலி- பெருச்சாளி” நடிக்க முடிவு செய்துள்ளார்.

தலை அஜித், பாலியுடன் “நான் தலை, நீ வாலு“ என,பெரிய பட்ஜெட்டில் படம் ரெடி செய்கிறார்.

சன் பிக்சர்ஸ் பெருமையுடன் “பாலியுடன் ஜாலி” என்னும் சூப்பர் ஹிட் அதிரடி திரைப்படம் தயாரித்து வருகிறது.

டி.ஆர். தன் பாணியில்
“ஏய் பாலி,உன் ஆட்டம் காலி,
நீ செலக்ட் பண்ண ஸ்பெயின் வின்னு, நான் அடிச்சா கன்னம் ஆகிடும் பண்ணு,
உனக்கு இருக்கு எட்டு காலு, நான் எப்பவும் பண்ணுவேன் மிஸ்டு கால்
ஏ டண்டணக்கா ஏ டணக்கணக்கா”

உலக நாயகன் கமல், Pauli is a complex molluscon with a extraordinary capability of prescience and predicatability, according to the chaos theory and  pauli's exlusion principle, பாலி ஒரு 2000 ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முந்தைய உயிரினம், ஆண் ஆக்டபஸும் பெண் ஆக்டபஸும் தொடர்ந்து 1-2 நாட்கள் கூட முத்தம் கொடுது கொண்டு இருக்குமாம்,  சுனாமி அலைகளிலும் தப்பித்து வாழ்க்கூடிய உயிரணங்களில் ஒன்றாகும். பாலியிடம், அல் பசினோ,மார்லன் ப்ராண்டோ, சிவாஜி போன்ற கலைஞர்-களிடம் காணப்படும் திறன் உள்ளது.

சூப்பர் ஸ்டார், பாலி பற்றி யாருக்கும் தெரியாத ரகசியம் ஒன்னு சொல்றேன், “பாபாஜி என்கிட்ட சொல்லிருக்காரு தமிழ் நாட்டோட தலை எழுத்தை மாத்தபோற சக்தி இருக்குனு”

சுப்ரீம் ஸ்டார், “இனிமே என்னொட படங்களில் நாட்டாமை-க்கு பதில் பாலி தீர்ப்பு சொல்லும்”

விவேக், “அடப்பாவிங்களா..பாலி பாலினு என் சோலிய முடிச்சிருவீஙக போல இருக்கே”

வடிவேலு ,” ஆக்டபஸ் கூட அடமொழியோடதான் அலையுதுஙக.ஹூம்.. “

வே.ஆ.மூர்த்தி, “தம்ப்ரீ..உனக்கு கால் மட்டும்தான் எட்டா? இல்லை வேற எதாவதும்...ஹீஹீ”

கவுண்டர், “டேய், கொக்கா மக்கா..இது பாலி இல்லடா.. போலி.. நல்ல பாருங்க ஜனங்களே.. நம்ம காட்டு பண்ணி தலையந்தான்
வேஷம் பொட்டுகிட்டு டகால்டி பன்றான்”

I was ignorant about the fact that shirdi sai and puttaparthi were quite different. Shirdi sai baba was born in a hindu family and adopted by a muslim fakir, he lived in shirdi and helped lot of people from their distress, his miracles were not magical but of help to those in need.

As I got to know about shirdi sai baba I thought of visiting. Inspite of my plan with ksrtc ,it turned different on the day of travel thanks to karnataka, maharashtra fighting over Belgaum. None of the ksrtc buses were plying and I reached bus stand without a hint of it.luckily sharma travels volvo service was running to Pune,i hopped on that at 1pm,a comfy travel and reached pune at 4am.took an auto rick to swar gate to find that shirdi bus starts from shivaji nagar.Btw even at 4am shops were busy selling vada pav. Waited til l 5 am and got a bus to shirdi. I humbly thank the language fanatics for the difficulty in me to decode every marathi letter in each bus board,post process with my hindi reading and pattern matching skills.wish I had QR codes pasted on each bus!!
After crossing lot of toll roads,reached shirdi,a small town, bus stand was as bad as you would imagine, enquired one lodge for room and summarily rejected,saying no room for people coming alone,next hotel didn't have this rule. Room had a fan running at same speed no matter how vigorously you change the control knob. Just had a quick shower and headed towards the shrine. As with any place with religious importance, shirdi also flooded with touts around free slipper storage and asking you to buy pooja items. I refused and headed towards safe storage for my camera and mobile phone.since I had never been there or with people knowing it I had tough time in locating the queue.i joined the queue for samadhi darshan at 11.30am,like Tirupathi line was long,in between some gang of people jump across the lines. I can tolerate atheist, but cannot accept these people.samadhi is the place where sri sai baba is layed down after he breathed last. In his remembrance,a white marble statute is installed.millions of people visit shirdi every year. The entire place he lived is walled by a big compound, neem tree under which he sat when he settled is called Guru sthan,landi bagh is a garden,a museum is there which displays baba's belongings like his clothes, grinding wheel, sleeping bed, mug etc. After 3hrs standing in queue I was able to see the wonderful life like statue of sri sai baba.After that I collected the sacred ash(udhi)and prasadam.
I vacated the room at 3pm and hopped on to pune bus,reached pune at dot 10pm and found a seat for my return travel to bangalore. 3 days of non stop travel yet happy.

Some tips to travelers
Get your train tickets booked when traveling with family, delhi bound trains from bangalore stop near shirdi (check web for details)
Get your accommodation right, even though I found good hotels later near the shrine.
Good 3_4 days need for this travel unless you stay nearby or  traveling by air
No mobile or camera is allowed, keep bottles of water, juices for long queues, check the travel month and plan accordingly.

Special entrance for aged people and physically challenged available at particular time of the day

I wish I had more time to explore the sacred place. Next time I should plan for a peaceful and calm time.

Jai jakkama = Kudukudupai Karan
Thambrii = vennira adai moorthy
Adangokka makka = gowndamani
Mr. Chandramowli = karthick
Abirami Abirami = kamal Hassan
Yes Dandanakka danakkunakka = T. R.
Hello dubaya = vadivelu
Jilpans and gilmaa = chinni jeyanth
Jujubi =rajini
Enna kodumai Saravanan = prabhu
It's important -romba mukkiymanathu =major sundarrajan

~~~
Sent from my Android
~~~

Often heard this term CTQ ( Critical to Quality) but seldom we concentrate on
Critical to Success of a software project or program

This again varies based on the kind of company, Services or a Product Company.

Product Companies are more focused on Technology, Market leadership in delivering high
quality,value products.
Key areas for a product company include but not limited to

1.Technology leadership - How good your technical solution superior over others. How placed
your technology against competitor. This quality requires heavy investment in terms of tools
and People. Ofcourse, load of Ph.Ds and highly knowledgeable graduates will be involved.
Beware, you should not run a research lab.Its these erudite souls who created Fiber optics, Internet protocols, but they are not the right people to take it to masses. Technically sound, advanced companies are most loved, but at the same time how these technology will give ROI (Return of Investment)?

Xerox is one of the best innovators of various technologies, but they didn't leverage it in
their products. E.g., GUI, Mouse are their invention, but where do you see their name here??

Apple on the other hand doesn't invent technology( iPod or iPhone is not an invention, its a best
package with best functionality), but it makes the best use of technologies like touch, accelerometer etc.

2.Market Leadership - How you can bring in a new product? How you can make the world
believe it.

This can be thought of monopoly in a market or sheer leadership because of pricing or quality.
People expect better/newer things from these companies. Also, market leadership can
dictate things, demand better pricing from their vendors. Market leadership is achieved over
a period or some case within short span ( by aggressive marketing, pricing).

Sony for example is a leader in premium or higher end segments in Entertainment industry. They can
demand a higher price for their quality and technology.


Services Companies have a different set of goals and means of achieving it. Most important factors are

1. Value Leadership
    Most of the customers to Services companies or product companies. They choose Services mainly to
meet their demands and scale. Prod. companies know what they want to do, they just need you to assist in
achieving it.
     Value Leadership is about Time/Cost advantage to the customer and also various engagement like
Support, maintenance, operations management etc. First and foremost point considered will be w.r.to Pricing
and the time to achieve.

     Product companies usually do the initial market analysis and bring up a Product, then comes the maintenance,sustenance, enhancement, support etc.
Indian companies shows value leadership in terms of cost ( offshore model).

Very simple example, take Automobile (Car). GM or Toyota is a product company which rolls out a wonderful Car.After this roll-out they will go back to innovate new ideas, improvement to their production capacity etc. Service companies are the one who take care of maintenance, replacement, repairs etc.


2. Consistent Delivery and Quality Leadership

    Cost and Time alone doesn't guarantee a usable service. For a less cost and shorter duration if your service doesn't meet the acceptance level of customer, then its a failure.

    Meeting the delivery commitments is a challenge and a key differentiators to a services company. Delivering not once, but consistently over a period of time, would bolster the confidence with customer.

    Quality is often an implicit goal. Earlier it was assumed higher quality product comes with a higher price,
now that doesn't stand good. With an optimal price, time-line, high quality is expected.

    Poor quality drives away all the good-will built over years. It will take years to build a trust, but it is instantaneously brought down by lack of quality.

 Assume you are asked to design/develop a Microwave oven. Of course, now with plethora of
existing products in market and with the help of Google,Wikipedia you can come up with a new
Microwave oven with new features. But can you think of the person who first did it??

How he would have envisaged it? He would feel the need of it. Necessary is the mother of invention as
we know.

One of the reason for bad quality of product or code is due to the lack of usability knowledge.
How many of us are fortunate enough to work or develop components of a product which we are going
to use every day?

Take another example, you are developing a safety-critical module of a Airplane, you will
code as per the standards, do your testing and ship it to the customer hoping all is well.
If you know you will be traveling in that Airplane often or your best friend/family members
use that Airplane, how different will be your coding/testing?? Anything sparked now!!!!!

We tend to sideline the importance of our effort how small or big and its impact. Do we
compromise on the quality of our life? Do you buy a LCD TV with 100 pixels in the bottom
screen is not working??

Get the "Big Picture" of your work. How your piece of work going to affect millions of people or even
1 or 2 people. How important is your piece of code going to stay for years.

If are building a component for a mobile phone  or a camera, walk down to a shop and find the usability,
reach of the product, how important is it to individuals, company which is building it. Think, What value can I
add to that?

Lets deliver the quality as we expect from others.

 We are all living with uncertainties, yet we expect a Ideal World. I am not getting philosophical though,
this post is mostly on building an ideal environment for a Software Professional.

Every job has a typical set of requirements/expectation, unlike software. In my personal opinion, s/w jobs are
most sought after and most dis-organized. 3 or 4 yrs of college education doesn't prepare well for the industry
facing kids.

Some Key points to Fresh joiners (from College)
# Its good to have an idea of the domain/field to choose, but don't be choosy about that
# Have a generic skill-set so that you can fit in to any domain
# Basic, Basics are very important, be it programming, data structures , algorithm etc
# Language is important, Java or C++ is not the only thing, it is a way of communicating to the Computer.
I would rather say, "If you are Michael schummacher, Ferrari comes next when its winning"
# Have an open mind to Learn things, start with small pieces of maintaining code, scripts
# There is nothing like bad thing, testing is often considered mean thing, but it also needs a keen point

Things to learn ...
# See/Read/Browse/Review Code again and again.. You can find lots of styles of coding, ways of expressing
# Understand Source Configuration management tools like CVS, Clearcase, SVN, Git etc
# Understand Build/Make/Compilation procedures, release procedures
# Learn various algorithms, optimizations, nuances of languages
# Master source code editors , my preference Vi, Emacs ( Source insight is good for cross-referencing, but a
bad choice for coding..beware of auto completes)
# Understand scripting, automating test suites, find ways to add debug logs to your code. Get to know
on reporting logs, extracting information from them.
# Understand the importance of code-reviews ( its not for bashing people), accept good comments, fight for
frivolous comments
# Learn to make good documents, notebooks. Prefer inline comments or use doxygen markups rather than lengthy
documents for code
# Do not try re-inventing the wheel, re-use code ( don't mistake it for copying).
# Try to challenge any assumptions, go to the last point in code to understand.
# If you are an embedded guy, know few Real Time OS, their basic constructs, advantages, support tools etc
# Master Debugger (GUI or non-GUI), know how to trace a program in execution, watch memory, analyze exception,
dumps etc
# Learn by doing.. modify existing code for improved readability or performance
# participate in forums for discussion code/algorithms

No this post is not going to be as abstract as you think ;)


Why Abstraction?
 Simple straightforward - interview type answer is.
To provide portability - seamless integration across various OS and Platform.

Can we dissect the statement???

Portability -- You can have this software running on any piece of box containig a processor
and Operating system.

Seamless -- sartorial term eh? how cleanly your software binds to existing software is the
question, it should not be the case where you cut your feet instead of the shoe ;)

various OS -- Your software/stack should be OS independant. How ? Do not use OS
specific calls just because it is available with that operating system. Some
system calls are specific to OS, indeed you can achieve the same effect by writing
couple of more lines

Platform -- This is again tricky.. Platform here refers to the entire gamut of external
dependancy.. lets say you are designing a UI screen, possible inputs could be Mouse,
Remote, Network etc. Let say you were adament on Mouse.. your application may not be
portable to a platform using Touch sensors.

Ok, when do you need a portable solution??
 If you are damn sure no one else is going to use your solution other than the current
one, you can skip this post.

 But, in reality every conceivable piece of code is ported-moved across OS/Processors.

Lets take an example. TCP/IP stack is a ubiquitous piece of code now present in our daily
life. Around 1980 it was residing in big servers/machines. Now even your damn small mobile phone
has a stack running TCP/IP stack. In short, TCP/IP stack is ported across all platform ranging
from Desktop PCs, Servers, Routers, Switches, Mobile Phones,Aircraft, Set top box, TV etc.

How is this possible, TCP/IP stack will have a core logic as part of its code and on the
periphery ( lower physical layer and application layer) will be acting as a abstraction layer
for portability.

In more human terms, I, as an Individual is  portable (really!!!!), I am a sincere guy
at office, funny guy at home, respectful gentleman in neighbourhood.
How is this possible? you have different interface for different occasion, but in core I am the
same. ok, enough of analogy.

Years of experience, has caused some maturity in my thinking, Earlier, I worked on providing software stacks
which were ported, but did I keep in mind the guy who's gonna use it? No.. A BIG NO.

Reason?? I haven't used a software with clean abstraction.!!!

Rule #1 If you haven't experienced it, how can you give that experience?


I have found various software stacks, which gives you only binary license and provide header files and
documents for porting. They are really smart, they don't want you to tinker their code.

These guy ensure that the header files are perfect and documents are self-explanatory, and moreover they don't have time to spend with you. You need support, then sign a support/maintenance agreement and you run away.

I like this model, keeping this in mind, lets say you are going to provide interface  for your software stacks.

Rule #2 Keep minimal APIs/Function exposed from your Stack/Layer

Since you are providing header files and documents, you should as crisp as possible, without any ambiguity.
It is better to provide a sample stub/template for the porting layers, so that the other party can start building
it right away.

Provide sample/test application/code so that Sanity of the porting can be verified as soon as possible.

If asked provide the list of OS resource, Memory usage of your software, so that it doesn't hamper the existing
software stack.

Keep event/debug logging mechanism to find the issues quickly, if it falls in your court or it is a porting problem.

Document the APIs/Function which needs to be provided by the host Software stack inorder for your Softwar stack to be ported.

In loose terms,
Exported APIs(Functions provided by the software stack for usage by host (Application))
Imported APIs(Functions needed by the software stack from host (Application) )

If you are planning for a rock-solid software stack sale, experiment yourself with porting across multiple OS,platform.