A bit of inspiration most weekdays for exploring your mindset .

Zero inbox rule

We have many distractions in daily life and a lot of them are digital distractions apps dings on the mobile phone, beeps on laptop, beeps on home appl… ...more

December 06, 2024 #meta

quantify or perish

Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where you feel that your message is important but it's not being heard or understood as it must. It could be… ...more

December 05, 2024 #meta

Pin pointing the problems

Often times when we have a problem, we try our best to describe it to others but then we maybe describing it vaguely or completely wrong. That is unde… ...more

December 04, 2024 #meta

Oratory skills

Cicero one of marquee orators believed that appealing to emotions of audience is far more effective than logic and scientific reasoning. As per Plutar… ...more

December 03, 2024 #meta

Cost of maintenance

Often we add a feature or service to enhance products or fix defects to service them in field. In software products the process will often result in a… ...more

December 02, 2024 #meta

Quality Vs Quantity

Traditionally productivity is defined as 'output / input', however productivity is not always about quantity, quality matters too. In fields like Soft… ...more

November 26, 2024 #meta

Output Vs Outcome

Output is immediate, tangible results whereas outcome is long term impact or consequence of action Output focuses on specifics e.g. a specific product… ...more

November 25, 2024 #meta

Write code to compile

A lot of times we write the code and throw it at the compiler and see what it comes up with, if it complains, we try to silence the diagnostics, warni… ...more

November 06, 2024 #meta

Tools for tasks

We learn a wide variety of tools to help us with various tasks. It does take a while to find out which tools are optimal for a task or a class of task… ...more

November 05, 2024 #meta

Developers and builders

Developer and Build Engineer roles often overlap, especially in smaller teams, but they serve distinct purposes and have unique responsibilities in so… ...more

November 04, 2024 #meta

Deleting code

A regular output of productivity in software is lines of code. We talk about how many lines of code someone writes on average per day. But a converse … ...more

November 01, 2024 #meta

Enablers

There are two aspects broadly in any product organization The products itself Enabling technologies to support it If you are part of former, it's ea… ...more

October 31, 2024 #meta

Writing good commit messages

It is crucial for effective collaboration, maintaining the code overtime and understanding the code in general. Well written commit messages help the … ...more

October 29, 2024 #meta

We need immutable systems

Many of us know systems which are not touched because they should always work. Software is getting into critical infrastructures at an accelerated pac… ...more

October 28, 2024 #meta

Positively inclined

If you work on software then you would agree that there are bugs everywhere, more code you peruse more bugs you see. Impelled by our negativity bias, … ...more

October 24, 2024 #meta

Ground-up or Top-down

When building Linux Distributions, you will be faced with two approaches - ground-up and top-down Each has its own advantages and use cases depending … ...more

October 23, 2024 #meta

Rolling releases

A rolling release is a software development model where updates are continuously delivered rather than in large, fixed version releases or time-based … ...more

October 22, 2024 #meta

Productivity Hacks

In last two decades a lot of productivity related software apps, books, and articles have been published, they all tell you about cool hacks to shore … ...more

October 21, 2024 #meta

Define OpenSource Guardrails

OpenSource software (FOSS) has become an appealing option for various IT infrastructures, offering companies access to plethora of tools and other sof… ...more

October 11, 2024 #meta

Decoding Silos

Software organizations are not immune to silos, despite their deep technological focus. I have heard silos being attributed to be a people trait, but … ...more

October 09, 2024 #meta

Beware of Shortcuts

Taking shortcuts in software development might save time in the short run, but it often leads to technical debt and headaches down the road. Skipping … ...more

October 08, 2024 #meta

Unintended opensource forks

When an organization wants to use open-source software, a common practice is to take a release and start working with it, initially testing out on ups… ...more

October 04, 2024 #meta

Picasso's Bulls

Over time a lot of software has been written, and a common theme has emerged on building on top of existing softwar,e or we shall say reuse, some exam… ...more

October 03, 2024 #meta

Gratitude

Yesterday I was driving on local roads, and I read this inspirational quote on the changeable letter signboard outside the local church Remember the d… ...more

September 30, 2024 #meta

Room for failure

WL Gore, the makers of Gore-Tex has a unique cultural tradition When a project does not work out, they celebrate it with a beer or champagne just like… ...more

September 27, 2024 #meta

Language

In his iconic works Tractatus, Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said "the limits of my language are the limits of my world" It can be interpre… ...more

September 26, 2024 #meta

Open Source mindset

Linux came on the Operating Systems scene during last decade of 20th century, how many new operating systems have come after ? RISCV instruction set (… ...more

September 25, 2024 #meta

Software automation workflows

If you are repeating a task more than once in a week don't worry so much but if the task is repeated daily, you must consider options to automate it, … ...more

September 24, 2024 #meta

Package managers

Managed package ecosystems accelerate developer productivity manifolds and promotes reuse. Here below is a small list of languages having package mana… ...more

September 23, 2024 #meta

Code is last

Whenever a new project is started, we have a tendency to read the problem hastily and get on to the computer and start coding it. This is a mistake, i… ...more

September 13, 2024 #meta

Compiler is your friend

How do you see the tools when developing software ? We write correct language primitives and syntax to represent the program logic. To get best out of… ...more

September 12, 2024 #meta

Code and readability

I have seen fabulous computer programmers, who can code any hard problem at hand. However, I have seen few whose code can be understood easily by othe… ...more

September 11, 2024 #meta

Friction

I wanted to develop a habit to go for a daily walk, and I will always find a reason to skip more often than not, then I decided to give fewer reasons … ...more

September 10, 2024 #meta

Biases

The investments which turned out to be good, I remember vividly and inherently take credit for them however, the ones which did not turn out to be so … ...more

September 09, 2024 #meta

Moving Mind

A famous Koan goes like this: Sitting outside the monastery Two monks were arguing about the flapping flag First one said, "Look, the flag is moving" … ...more

September 06, 2024 #meta

Its Easy to start - But is it?

I have come across this saying quite often it's easy to start but hard to finish. Asking a bit deeper why is that so ? we will find that when we say "… ...more

September 05, 2024 #meta

Lost Art of Asking Questions

We are going through information revolution, here knowledge work is fundamental building block, cognitive skills are driving this. Leadership has to e… ...more

August 21, 2024 #meta

OpenSource and Art

Closed source is like a painting which no one will see, Open source is the Art that all get to see, appreciate, and criticize and some of it will beco… ...more

August 20, 2024 #meta

Doubt

Albert Einstein debated Niels Bohr using light-filled box mental experiment on his understanding of quantum mechanics, when Bohr died, someone noticed… ...more

August 19, 2024 #meta

Introduction

Deluge of information and technology can weaken inner voice Explore your internal compass This newsletter provides tips each weekday to help you in th… ...more

August 14, 2024 #meta