Saturday, January 30, 2016

Dear Technology!

Keeping Up with the Latest and the Greatest Technology!!

It's becoming quite clear to me that it's humanely not possible at all to keep up with all the interesting technological advancements and the projects which seem to be taking the world by storm.

It's wildfire - and if this word was ever used in a good way - this is it. A wildfire of innovation and a big bang of possibilities.

So many possibilities that I can't help but feel a bit drowsy and overwhelmed!
 
Should I look into IOT ( Internet Of Things ) which is such a hot property these days?

Or should I get deep with System Programming -  wouldn't it be fun to be the unquestionable master of my machine ?

Oh how about the new platforms like MeteorJS - how many cool things I'd be able to make with NodeJS and Electron - countless!

And, who can't forget Android right? How useful is Android gonna be in future, how much should I get into Android internals and programming?

What if I want to customize my Android, how am I supposed to do it? Do I need to learn Java and all it's subtleties as a language - for some reason, I really don't like Java!

Shall I get involved with Firefox and the general Mozilla developers network and help create this Secure and Free world of software and revel in collaboration ? Perhaps Tizen is the next "android" ?

Or is it the Light Table which becomes the wave of the future, as far as the editors are concerned ?

How many libraries of the languages I learn do I need to be fluent at ?

Which plugins to use for the web browsers and even which browser to use while we are at it?
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So, there's the verbal storm that's shaking my forced reluctance these days! Confusing, isn't it?

There are literally so so many open source repositories which I'd really like to contribute to. Then my goal for being this deep in technology comes to my rescue, you know where my True North is don't you=)

It has always been my Dream to contribute to science and to be able to understand what is beyond this all-too-human-centric world. There's magic out there, in the stars and in the emptiness in between. There are great discoveries to be made - that's my True North. Technology is just a tool toward that goal, a path towards that destination.

Become Limitless, through your Limits - This used to be an obscure thought but it's becoming all the more clear to me now.

Though the major thrust, in the Tech. World is towards using the Web-Tech. driven products and leveraging the one thing our entire species has worked so hard upon - the Internet.

Anyone who wishes to even be remotely a ToolMaster in future - must also be a WebArtist.

Oh, btw I'm gonna switch to OS X soon. Actually, I did use the Macbook Pro a while ago and as I had the option of refusing to work on it,  I tried out various things which work for me and documented the entire process. I think it's the lighter counterpart Macbook Air which suits my needs better. So, there's gonna be this change soon when my PC ( a powerful desktop ) will be having a dual boot ( Mint + Windows7 ) and I'll work on the portable Mac Air. This Dell laptop's been a great companion through my college life and god only knows how many experiments it has been subjected to. It's has been a great machine to me.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Complex Systems Design

I used to think that Coding is really the new literacy 'cos of all the things it makes us adapt to, say thinking logically, understanding how to design the programs and at the same time there is this immense room for innovation.

And recently, I have been exploring the various tools built in and Clojure and web technologies. Oe such tool is Light Table which is the inspiration for tools like Juno IDE  for Julia language. 

So, I wanted to read more about what's keeping the inventor of this tool busy these days. Went over to his blog and came across this wonderful post which caught my attention. The blog post deals with "What we hope to achieve with programming" and "Approaching Complex Problem". I have to say that my views have been enriched by this post and I have come to realize that Coding, in and of itself is One of the ways of learning how to approach Complex  Systems Design.

For this post, I'd really recommend that you go through this  Blog Post by Chris Granger and really think about it 'cos, to me atleast, it seems to say alot in terms of what truly is a uniquely Human ability!

I find that my thought on this topic are evolving and it'd be sometime before I am able to form this thought-tread into words. My intuition tells me that it's really something that's gonna resonate a lot in coming posts.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Lazy and I know it)

Remember that in this post I mentioned these links -


Hacking is a Mindset not a Skillset 

Five Principles of Hacking

Understanding Hacker Mindset

Hacking Mindset


Which only shows how much curiosity, originality and collaboration are valued in the world of Hackers. So, it should be, no? 

Collaboration and Originality owe their origin, in part, to being Lazy and Smart. Both of which are almost the guiding principles along which I move forward. Why reinvent the wheel if it has already been done long time ago - why not work on something Original ourselves. 

You know, I have been using Jade , CoffeeScript and LESS to overcome the traditional drudgery involved in dealing with the Web-trio of HTML5 ? JavaScript / CSS. Why?

Only because, it involves less typing and LOT cleaner code. Plus, I love exploring the various packages for Atom. I love Emacs and am learning new things about the editor every single day but I think that in the long run Atom will surpass Emacs owing to the core technology of the Editor viz the Web Technologies like CoffeeScript and LESS. Seriously, if there ever was an editor which showed more promise it would be named Emacs2. 

I do wonder that perhaps, reconstructing Emacs from the ground with Clojure would be great but then again, the overall porting of various Elisp packages or even collaboration between the two Lisps and technologies might break a lot more things which make Emacs - Emacs)

Sunday, January 3, 2016

GamePlan 2016

After a long month ( or a long while ) , I have had a couple days all to myself - I was "working" on the New Year's Eve;P

And I am looking forward to making this year an even better one that the one that flew by. You know, I am really getting into Functional Programming and this is the year I am gonna stick to Functional Languages and start contributing code to the Github profile. 

I'll probably stick with One Big Idea and try to implement it in various languages and through this context and within it, I'll love to explore the various nuances of Programming languages and get to know their personality as such. 

What follows is the list of Tools in my ToolKit which I thoroughly aim to master this year. Sadly, I don't foresee having much time in my hands for Mathematics or Physics - though I know I can definitely fill Linguistics into my schedule. Keeping my fingers crossed;P


General Purpose Languages

Julia
Python
Ruby

Functional Juggernauts

Haskell 
Racket
Clojure

Regarding the Web Technologies

CoffeeScript 
JavaScript

HTML5
Jade - Templating for HTML

LESS
CSS


Quirky Languages

ChucK


Text Editors

Vim

Atom

Emacs

Versioning Tool

Git

Hopefully by the end of this year, if there is such a thing as a Wizard in Programming - I'll be at that level ( I believe in Magic;P )

I'll be more active on the blog from now on as I think I am adapting well to the new lifestyle!

P.S. Looking forward to 2016 as the year I finally graduate from being a NoOb