Pleasantrian

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Ayikudy, My Native Place

The village i belong to, Ayikudy, is a beautiful village nearby Courtallam and Tenkasi. I was there till i finish my schooling.

Most of the people from my place hesitate to tell our place name as it's first part means something dirty in Tamil :) But why did they name like that. It seems the place was initially named as 'Balasubramaniyapuram' as the deity in our place has name as 'Balasubramaniya Swamy'. But, there was a king called 'Aai Andiran'(ஆய் அண்டிரன்) and the place is renamed in memory of him.

As it happens with any language, Tamil also has a lot of words which means different from it did in olden days. I think i can write a separate post on this.

Terrain View :

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Satellite View :

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Map View :

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Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Rajani blessed with girl baby

Video Removed due to breach of privacy.. :)

On Wednesday (26-AUG-2009), after a square lunch was in a office meeting. When the topic turned to be food in office and the some conflicts amongst the people on how many vadas a person should take, I got a message from Rajani saying she's blessed with the baby girl. It was a pleasant surprise.I wished her with my reply.

Once the meeting got over I called her and wished her. Came to know that shes in Balaji hospital which was nearby to my office. I talked with Shreeni and Jeya and they told they also gonna come.

Evening around 7 I left office and they were on the way to hospital. I reached nearby hospital and they were stuck in traffic and rain. Chennai is worst in terms of it's stamina to rain. Even a day's rain is enough to make roads flooded, traffic, irritation and what not..

Around 8 pm, we were at hospital. It's a strange feeling to look at a new born baby. It's my very first time in my life. I fear to take them and hold them. They seem to be very fragile and it's hard to understand why they cry.

But Jeya was very much comfortable in that. She was konjifyin the child and kept on talking to her (as well).. That child was very demanding. She always wanted someone to lift and keep playing with her. The moment you lay her over the bed she started crying. :)

Rajani was in bed, very tired and feeble in voice. But she looked good. She had undergone scissorian surgery and suffering from pain. She talked only few words.Gud..And she suddenly seemed to command respect.Maternity makes women complete. There's an interesting fact. Pain is measured in a unit called 'dol'. The maximum amount of pain that human beings withstand is 9.5 dols. It happens during labor pain. Women are really courageous.

They kept talking whom the child resembles and so.. typical discussions. I'm very week in finding that sort of things. Kept mum for the whole time which is becoming usual to me,des days.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Google group for Jeppiaar ECE 2006

Some time back Aarthi created a wave with her mail after long time. It made to trigger many replies and people seemed to be interested to stay connected. I set up a Google doc to update contact details of out classmates and people did it.
I always wanted a better way to stay connected than these sort of mailing lists.

It was hard for anybody to maintain a list of mail ids.

Most of us get annoyed with growing number of 'Reply to all'.

More than mails, we need something more..

So, I have started a google group. With that,

Nobody has to remember the mail ids of all. The only mail id to be noted is jprece2006@googlegroups.com

People can choose to have daily digests (Which will give gist of a days activities as mail) or Web-view (No email. they can view threads by directly visiting groups site.)

We can have profile with fotos, discussions and share files. We can create some pages and publish

I can see still there are so many people missing from this. SO many of us are not active participants. But, they are watching silently AFAIK. Nothing wrong in that :)
Also, I dont expect everyone to change and suddenly become very interactive with this. My goals are simple.

jprece2006@googlegroups.com will act as a single mail id to be remembered always no matter how many switches our friends make between companies.

One fine Sunday afternoon after heavy lunch, just going thro the this group might make nostalgic

Let's how it turns out to be...

Thursday, August 20, 2009

ThoughtWorks Interview Process for Dev

I have been queried on how I got into TW. Let me just brief the interview process I have undergone.

I got referred by one of my friends' friend. In two days I got a call from TW recruitment team and my interview process started.

Step 1 - Code Review :

We have to write ans submit the code and it will be reviewed by TW for OO design aspects.
It started with a mail from them which described two problems. I was asked to choose one and implement a solution for it. I was asked not to worry about the GUI sort of things as they gonna concentrate only on my coding abilities and design.

I took a problem and wrote a solution in Java which will read inputs from some text file and writes the output into console.
Also, I prepared a ppt explaining the design.
Zipped the solution as eclipse project along with ppt and sent.

Thats' it. first step over.. cool..

If they find they code is satisfactory, they will call for next step.

Step 2 - Code Pairing :

A ThoughtWorker will sit along and we have do some discuss the code we wrote in first step and we have to make changes as they direct.

I went to TW office and a TWer came with laptop with the code I sent loaded on eclipse. He asked me to explain the solution, design and kept questioning why things are done that way. Then he gave some new/change requirement and asked me to do the change. I did. In this step they ensure the design flexibility of code and our ability to respond to a change rationally.

This step will be more like discussion and changing code based on that. It goes upto 1 to 1.5 hrs.

Step 3 - Written Tests:

There are three tests. One to test behavioral aspects, one to logical ability and one more to test vocabulary and lateral thinking.

Step 4 - Technical Discussions:

Here's an interesting part. TW makes sure that you interact with may TWer and their feedback is considered for taking decision about your recruitment.

I underwent discussions with TWers and it was very interesting. I had three rounds each spanning for 30 to 45 mins.

I was given a problem and asked to form a solution for that. I drew some class-diagram sort of thing and explained them. They stated some scenarios and asked me to explain how will it work in that scenario and so many questions about it.

I was also asked some basic technical questions across Java, HTML, JavaScript, Spring, Struts, Hibernate..... They went thro my resume and questioned whatever they could. But those questions were very practical. They dint ask 'what's the third argument in some method in Java.xxx.yyy?' sort of questions which some people ask just to show off or to embarrass us.

Altogether that discussion was very nice.

Step 5 - HR:

Very simple. Not much questions. Mostly on negotiation and feedback about the interview process.

That's it. You will be into one of the coolest cutting-edge companies. :)

The process is not set-in-stone. It could vary a bit.

Throughout the interview process they were very polite, understanding and helping. Whether we get in or not, the interview itself will be a wonderful experience.