Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

This interview features Grady Booch, a pioneer of software engineering (co-creator of UML and object-oriented design), discussing why AI is not the "end" of the profession, but rather the catalyst for its Third Golden Age. The Three Golden Ages The First Golden Age (Late 1940s – Late 1970s): Focus: Algorithmic abstraction and decoupling software from hardware. Drivers: The Cold War and military funding (e.g., SAGE missile defense) pushed the need for real-time, distributed systems. Abstraction: Moving from machine-level "plugboards" to assembly and early high-level languages like Fortran and COBOL [08:52]. The Second Golden Age (Late 1970s – Early 2000s): Focus: Object-oriented programming and design. Drivers: The "Software Crisis"—the industry couldn't produce quality code fast enough to meet demand. This era saw the rise of the PC, open source, and the internet. Abstraction: Moving from processes/functions to objects and classes (e.g., C++, Smalltal...

Booch's career has spanned several significant eras in the history of computing. His anecdotes from his time working with various companies and technologies provide a unique glimpse into the evolution of the field. Insights The Booch method and C++ developed in parallel and influenced each other. Booch and Bjarne Stroustrup (the creator of C++) even did a lecture series together in the United States. UML was initially conceived as a way to unify three prominent object-oriented methodologies: Booch, Object Modeling Technique (OMT), and Objectory. This led to the collaboration of Grady Booch, James Rumbaugh, and Ivar Jacobson. Booch believes that the shift from UML 1.0 to 2.0, which focused on making UML a precise programming language, was a mistake. He intended UML to be a visual language for reasoning about, visualising, specifying, and documenting software systems, not for generating code . " the entire history of software engineering is one of rising levels of abstraction...

Highlights from the TED Talk by Sian Leah Beilock - Why we choke under pressure — and how to avoid it We worry about the situation, the consequences, what others will think of us. But what is surprising is that we often get in our own way precisely because our worries prompt us to concentrate too much. That's right -- we pay too much attention to what we're doing. When we're concerned about performing our best, we often try and control aspects of what we're doing that are best left on autopilot, outside conscious awareness, and as a result, we mess up. Ways to prevent choking under pressure - Avoid overattention / Paralysis by analysis - sing a song, take your mind off pesky details  Practise with simulations, Practice under stress - take a timed test, practice in front of a video camera or even a mirror Journaling or jotting down worries on paper before a stressful event can help to download them from mind Be aware of environment - people around us, social me...

If necessity is the mother of invention, then maybe laziness is the mother of innovation  - Danny Brian, Vice President and Fellow, Gartner At Gartner Catalyst 2018, Brian named laziness, impatience and hubris as the three secret virtues of a great IT practitioner -- borrowing them from acclaimed Perl programmer Larry Wall . In Wall's book, laziness is defined as "the quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure." Brian lists specific examples of what true laziness requires of an IT practitioner: not repeating yourself; not reinventing the wheel -- utilizing the best frameworks and tools to save time and effort; focusing on the most important problems; knowledge and recognition of design patterns, which avoid solving the same or similar problems multiple times; ensuring test-driven development in order to avoid hours spent later in panic mode trying to figure out what broke; developing processes and procedures that actual...

“I was an entrepreneur many times over. I failed a couple of times; I succeeded three or four times. If you fail six or seven times, then it is better to work for a big company because it is not good for your health.”  -  Kavitark Ram Shriram , Silicon Valley investor,  one of the first investors in Google, 58-year-old Google board member having a net worth of about $1.9 billion (Rs. 12,663 crore). Also see:  Hey RAM