Collage of Thoughts

Somewhat ironically mirroring real-life progression; I believe most people in career start off by suffering from near-sightedness (can't focus on far objects), and later develop long-sightedness (can't focus on close objects).

Both are vision problems; and a direct result of exclusively dealing with things too close or, too far off; at the neglect of the other side. Only a handful few of us, through conscious practice, learn to beautifully navigate back and forth as the situation demands. The lesser mortals (including me) need a "power correction", so that we can continue to "spot" and "see" the important things - be it close or far. Agree? :-)

Disclosure: Even with 15y+ of work experience; I am a self-confessed myopic always drawn to details, who wears big round glasses to see far off things. ;-)

Just like true players at heart, I believe, true practitioners in any field love to be on the ground up until the time they are either rendered unfit or, declared unfit to play the game anymore. Whereupon, they silently pack up and retire to the commentary box or to the gallery - watching and commenting about a game being played out at a far distance.

On and off, I get an opportunity to contribute to a high-end project with a steep "learning curve", in an IC role. Nothing pleases me more. I code in a high-intensity gym-mode, writing production-code perhaps no more than 1.5-2 hours a day; and still get considered "highly productive" in the team - a mode that can be sustained for such short bursts only, as I "burn" really fast. The rest of my working hours, I am quietly researching, learning, figuring out better ways to solve the problem, launching my code with a heightened pulse, watching and tuning how it behaves on the cluster, and attending highly focused discussions/meetings. But those 2 intense hours of execution, where "things just fall in place", make all the difference to my work and my day.

What does your most productive hour at work look like? :-)

It's been a long time since I had watched this brilliant talk by Rich Hickey, the father of Clojure, on simplicity in software. And his brutally honest talk still haunts me.

He starts by reminding you that simplicity is a prerequisite for reliability. I am sure it's a prerequisite for all other desired -ities as well, including agility.

He further clarifies that "simple" is objective, versus "easy" is subjective (a measure of your "familiarity" with something).

He talks of "essential/inherent complexity", which is inherent to the problem versus "accidental/incidental complexity" - the complexity that was not required to solve the problem in the first place - basically "man made complexity" through convoluted approaches taken to a simple problem.

He draws an interesting parallel between "trying to make sense of, and untangle complexity" and juggling; and the human limitations of even the most amazing juggler in the world!

As techies, we are naturally drawn to problems that are "essentially complex", as opposed to addressing technical debt of a massive scale. As an architect, how many hours do you spend addressing "essential complexity" versus "accidental"? #architect #simplicity #agility #technicaldebt #productivity

As we patiently wait in hope, and contribute our bit towards containing the spread of #coronavirus; if your weekends suddenly feel empty, here are some tips from someone who is a natural at being socially aloof, and finds the world way too chatty and way too busy for the value we create. :-)

I remember a line from a Christie book I can't recall right now - that "lazing is an art". Not everybody can do it well.

Sleep - If you feel tired, just sleep without an alarm. And without guilt. Weekend mornings don't necessarily have to start at 8 AM. Jab jaago, tabhi savera! ;-)

Marathon reading - Pick up an unread book from your shelf, and soak yourself in it.

Learn by doing - Learn by doing something you have not had time for.

Contemplate - Turn inward. Think and feel deeply about something important you only had rushed time for. Thinking, at least deep thinking, is ultimately a solitary and a no-rush process.

[Re-posted from my recently authored posts on LinkedIn]