Dear X, In my previous letter, I had incorrectly stated that the quarter-final event at Shashank’s place was 1992 Cricket World Cup Quarter-final. Shashank pointed out it was 1997 and I corrected the record. If this had been an actual letter, then that error would have lived for posterity (or…

Dear X, July of 1993, I am studying at Nowrosjee Wadia College for my Bachelors of Computer Science. Ours was a relatively new department in one of the oldest colleges in India. Computers were a novelty then and being a Computer Science student was a matter of immense pride. Part…

Humankind’s achievements are attained standing on the shoulder of giants. What I have attained in my career is because of my mentors, peers, teachers, and adversaries; sometimes in spite of them. People who know me would tell that I am an avid reader. I started 2021 by reading three excellent…

Struggles of an aging Software Engineer — Writing software has always been a creative process for me. The solving of a small bug or building of a big feature has given me the same pleasure that I get from reading Emily Dickinson, Evelyn Waugh, Christopher Hitchens, or Richard Dawkins. As asinine as it might sound, I used…

…. and don’t run them like one. Software engineering is as much a science and as it is an art. Software Engineers take immense pride in their work, and for them building software is an extremely creative process. At Spurious Software, Mark had recently joined the Lynchpin Division as the…

NodeJS is a monstrosity, a Mordor of architectural pitfalls, the plastic of programming languages — ubiquitous, toxic, and sadly here to stay. Like plastic, it started off as useful and has now become ubiquitous & toxic. There is no arguing NodeJS lowers the barrier to entry for application development. …

People leave managers and not companies This is the most abused cliche, but then I am repeating myself when I say “abused cliché” . Why do employees leave companies? I posit the below as the primary factors Growth — Professional and monetary Innovation stagnation Recognition Growth The employees’ professional relationship with…

In its infancy (seed stage), a startup builds out API, Tools, and systems in a very nimble way with minimal-to-no overhead of processes. The need of the hour is speed of delivery and getting a working Proof-of-Concept out; so the emphasis is ‘getting things done quickly’ as opposed to elegantly…

Niall Ferguson is currently a senior fellow at Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A prolific author and a brilliant mind. His virtues are numerous, but let me elucidate a few here. Always right Even when he ends up being wrong, he changes his mind to become right. He should have been a scientist…