Reflections

Last weekend, I did my 5th marathon - Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2011. Of all the marathons in India, SCMM is beyond doubt the most renowned and the biggest of them all. And to add to that, this probably is one of the very few marathons in India where the whole city comes out in vociferous support for the runners.  Needless then to say, this is one marthon in the "to-run" list of most runners in India. The run up to the race itself was muddled with a lot of confusions and uncertainties. First the train ticket did not get confirmed till the last day (in spite of having been booked almost three months in advance). Then there was the nagging cold and cough which I contracted exactly four days before the race and one that threatened to only get worse by the day. The third was the unexpected hospitalization of my aunt, with whom I was planning to stay.  Luckily, I was able to work around these and for my cold, I just took a chance hoping that the cold will not cause too ...

For any professional programmer,  knowledge of Design Patterns is necessary not only designing efficient solutions to problems, but also to add to his vocabulary while interacting with other technical architects as these terminology have found widespread usage in design discussions. Head First Design Patterns  is clearly not the book that a design pattern veteran would pick up, nor will it ever be the go-to book when you want your hands on a reference book on the subject. And the book clearly mentions that it is not written with this intent. Rather, this book is for somebody who wants to get an idea of what these design patterns are -- not just their definitions, but more practical explanations such that people do not forget these definitions once they close the book. And I should  say that this book meets this goal. The book covers 13 design patterns in detail and each and every one of them is explained based on a (though sometimes overly synthetic) problem with acc...

Another year and it is time to reflect back if I have grown one year wise or just one year old. Pretty difficult question, I should say.  I am not going to try and fool myself answering this question one way or other, instead let me try to list down some of things that come to my mind as to how 2010 progressed. The three marathons that I ran this year should definitely qualify as one the highlights of this year, with each race being a challenge in itself. Mumbai 2010 was my first marathon in two years and I need to overcome the mental demons as much as the physical challenges. SFO in July 2010 was an unexpected marathon and so I was not clearly as prepared as I would have liked to. Also, this was marathon was after a long layoff due to the shoulder surgery and given the course, this was a difficult race to run. Finally my first 50K race at Ultra in November.  Needless to say, any distance after 42.2K is challenging and 50K was a real challenge. That I did them, though not ne...