Welcome to ExoPlanet

Two and a half years. That is how long I've been in Exoweb. That is also how long I've lived in Beijing and China. During this period I've been constantly surprised by the interesting characters I've met and interacted with while living in China and working in Exoweb.

While in Exoweb, I was given a lot of opportunities to learn and grow. Even though I had prior working experience there were lots of new things and problems that I encountered, which made my job quite fun and challenging. It is in Exoweb that I learned a lot more about open source, python, linux and apple products. Exomates are quite enthusiastic about Apple products like iPod, iPhone and Macbooks.

It is in Exoweb that I witnessed, for the first time, how software is made using agile methods. There are definitely lots of areas where things can be done better in Exoweb but I have to say that there are few companies that would give so much room for experimentation and because of that the engineering discipline in Exoweb is well developed and mature.

Exoweb is not only about work. Exomates enjoy as much as they possibly can as well. When we're not coding or banging our heads into the beautiful dual 22 inch monitors because of some weird bug, we are having fun eating, chatting and playing in the numerous parties and get togethers that are organised ever so often.

I remember what Dominic told me on my first day, if you feel sleepy, don't be afraid to go to the couch and take a short nap. Sleep during work hours? This is blasphemy. And that is just a glimpse of how the culture is like in Exoweb: open, experimental and dynamic.

I'll definitely miss the people in Exoweb. You guys are really a unique bunch. My memory isn't that great, but I know for sure I won't forget what a blast I had here!

I'll have to thank Dominic, Bjorn, Ken and Greg for allowing me to enter into Exoweb, because they interviewed me for the job. During the course of my work life in Exoweb, a lot of people have helped me along the way, nudging me in the right direction or sharing with me their point of view. I would like to extend my gratitude to (including some that have already left):

• Ken, for his trust and support for my work in Exoweb
• Bjorn & Mike, for their optimism and fresh ideas
• Dominic, for his enthusiasm and energy
• Cindy, for her 能干-ness ("neng gan")
  
• Sabrina, for being a friendly PM and having a nice smile
• Greg, for his mentoring and pursuit of technical brilliance
• Ada, for her smiley face when she arrives in the office, minutes before 11am
• June, for her support when there was none
• Jacky, for his playfulness
• YJPark, for making geeks look cool
• Ella, for being 矫情 ("jiao qing")
• Darren, for my first dinner in China at the yellow dirty
• Ben, for his objective views and good coffee
• Fantix, for his speed & thoroughness and absolute comical behaviour
• Ionut, for his out of the box thinking
• Jacob, for his idealisms
• Xiao Feng, for her chinese science fiction
• Cai Yan, for his tough to understand Mandarin
• Phyllis and Ryan, for all the bug finding and last minute testing requests
• Lina, for her patience for all HR troubles
• Wilson, for all the sysadmin troubles
• TC, for his photography tips and Jacky Cheung songs
• Admin girls: Emily, Grace, Kelly, Miya, for their never ending yeses
• Rena, for her fuzzy and warm Christmas SMS text message
• Ayi, for her never ending advice on living

Not only that I've come to like working with Exomates. I am honoured to work along side our clients who have been really good to me. Many thanks to Ken Ronny, Tobias, Torgrim, Tomas and Kristian for their kindness and cooperation.

One interesting data that I have compiled of the people in Exoweb in the current state. The girls are truly overtaking us, guys, atleast in Exoweb! Why do I say this? Let the data speak for itself:

• 25% of the developers are girls
• 40% of the testers are girls
• 100% of the PMs are girls
• 100% of the Admin, HR, Finance are girls

Although only 25% of the developers are girls, but programming isn't the only skill you need to run a successful company, or even a project and the girls, seem to be more multi-talented than guys! In fact, I wonder how an all-girl software company would be like .

Okay, enough of a digression, as for Beijing, I'll miss the great concrete forest that is filled with people from all corners of China. Actually I love big cities but I wish for Beijing to be more walkable. Although I think I'll be happy to be away from the pollution but when the skies are blue, it makes it almost worth it to breath all that sand into my lungs, almost but not really. I'll also miss amazing the traffic and driving behaviours here.

I hope that my future endeavours will be as exciting and as memorable as my times in Exoweb and China. Hopefully I'll be able to spread some of the Exoweb goodness that I have absorbed in these 2 and a half years in my next venture.

To everyone that I have worked with in Exoweb:
谢谢. Do jeh. Thank you. Terima Kasih. Domo arigato. Merci.

NOTE:
PM = Project Manager
HR = Human Resource

NITPICK:
For the stats I presented, I didn't include the bosses

When I read codes, I some times meet code like this:

def foo(bar):
# some work that don't need obj
return bar.blah

Sometimes it is convenient for the developer who write such codes, just need to pass "bar" around anywhere.
But I think sometimes it's not a good style.
1. If what we need is only bar.blah, why pass the whole object? It's possible that foo() make have side-effects that the invoker don't expect--Yes, you can read the code of foo() to know what it does, invoke it only when you fully understand foo(). But that costs time!
2. such code will soon be hard to maintain. Because an object is more complex than a single value.(str, int, list, dict, etc.)

November and December, so far, has been a bit off my normal programming: a quick trip back to Malaysia and a small side trip to Singapore, part-timing in Exoweb, getting kicked out of my apartment (many thanks for Exoweb in allowing me to live in the office apartment temporarily) and hacking in cafes with free-wifi.

I haven't been blogging much due to my self-imposed time constraints, more along the lines of I am busy, but with what I wonder, or possibly laziness. However, I've been reading a bit more, mostly tech stuff, from my already overflowing feeds. Its nice to have the mark all as read in google reader, to make myself feel better at times.

Actually I am not sure what to write these days. Everything is happening so fast I don't have time to think and reflect. Just going with the flow without much braking, hopefully in the right direction.

Its the end of the year again, time to reflect I suppose and think about what has happened in this whole year. Its been quite a hectic ride this year. Bouncing around quite a bit and doing a lot of stuff that I never did before. Hope I can write it up in a more detailed blog later.

I mainly blog for myself. Because it helps me remember. It helps me to stop a bit and think a bit more. Hopefully learn something from this. If it ever helps someone, I would be so happy.

The one and a half week trip back to Malaysia was a quick learning trip about the malaysian VC world. There is only so much you can read about. Its so much clearer when you can see it and feel it happening. I wish I did what Paul Graham preached during my college/university days.

There is so much I want to do for the work in Exoweb, but we're constrained by our natural limits. I always wished for 48 hour days, but I wonder if that ever comes true if it will change anything. Maybe I'll just waste more time in the end. I suppose the closest thing we have on that is the polyphasic sleep but I don't think I would ever do that though.

While learning and using agile practices and writing code in Exoweb, I have always thought about writing a tool or system to make project management and software development slightly simpler so that we can concentrate on the task at hand but I never found a good answer or never got to it. Here are some of the things that bug me in some way or the other:

• Inoffensive time tracking
• Easier tracking and management of tasks, from requirements and design to it being live in production systems
• More accurate estimation of tasks
• Simpler deployment, like one-click deployment
• Less time in administration, automate like crazy when useful, but more time in management instead
• More effective coaching, documentation and communication of project goals

What bugs you? Or maybe you've found a slightly better way to deal with the following issues? It would be good if we can discuss more about them.

I think my blogging time is up for now, I don't really know what else to write. Maybe I'll have more ideas later.

  其实没有啥好写的，只是自己去做这身旗袍的时候还是挺兴奋期待的。好多朋友知道了都说要看看我穿上的样子，拍了几张party的照片，和大家显摆显摆。


这张是去之前照的，站得挺直的，就是有点不自然，呵呵，紧张，第一次穿旗袍。



正餐吃完了，大家随便放松一下， 不过一会还有甜点的哦.



自由时间，大家随便聊天，我和Christi.



为啥，我老是爱闭着眼睛乐呢？



实在是站累了。

我还是挺喜欢的，尤其是很多人过来和我说觉得我的旗袍很漂亮，也想给自己的老婆或女朋友买的时候，我就很高兴的告诉他们，只是带他们来中国，很简单的。呵呵

这两天的工作中，因为自己的design不好，导致走了很多弯路。
由此想到：
好的design可以节省大量的编码时间，编出更易维护的代码。
但并非只要认真做就能做好。好的design和经验有很大关系。
如何提高design能力？
1. 从自己的失败的design中及时总结。除了总结这个design为什么不好外，想想以后应该怎样去design？
2. 看别人的代码时，要分析他的design，好处、缺点在哪里？

下面这些是我不看书也能想起来的，印象深刻的儒家思想：

• 吾日三省吾身。
• 不迁怒，不二过。
• 父母之年，不可不知也，一则以喜，一则以惧。
• 三人行必有我师焉，择其善者而从之，其不善者而改之。
• 见贤思齐，见不贤而内自省也。
• 慎独。
• 不患人之不己知，患不知人也。
  

• automatic scrum "since last"
• automatic scrum "before next"
• automatic updating ticket
• connect review board url to changeset No.
• review board: add correct link in commit message
• trac: add link to review board automatically
• automatic updating team backlogs: cr/crf/fine
• search functionality for s60
• review board--trac integration.
  
• improve open source chinese input method, think about how good sogou pinyin is.
  

小组成员的过程改进很有用，可以让一个团队不断的提高。
对于个人而言，也可以尝试着使用、改进过程。
孔子说“慎独”，很有道理，独处的时候能否控制自己？制定一些过程并执行，相信这是控制自己的方法之一。

今天早晨，制定了我现在要执行的过程：

独处时

• 每天背新概念英语1h
• 每天用1h来补大学计算机课程，目前是《数据库与事务处理》
• 每天1h看应用/技术方面的非课本书籍，目前是《postgresql》
• 每天总结当天的非技术方面的思想/进步；反思犯过的错误。记录下来。
• 每周用2h看人文方面的书。
  

工作时

• scrum前总结工作的进步，scrum后把技术上的收获做成笔记。
• 10% review board的url，与changeset号关联起来。
• 多与同事沟通，多向他们学习。
  

2008年冬天，我遇到的第一场雪，在塔林。因为只管那些能覆盖路面，看上去白白一片的叫做下雪，这样的话，虽然只是薄薄的一层，我已经很满意了。外面的水汽很大，雾蒙蒙的。路上很滑，因为总有一部分雪再融化，天气也相对寒冷起来了。办公室里面有很多人都生病了，我也受到了感染，时不时的咳嗽两声，我发誓，绝对不是骗人应景的

听Ken Ronny说他们那边的雪很厚，按照他比划的深度，估计到我的膝盖了。我很羡慕，但是我在想，是不是是因为太长时间的黑夜，所以需要雪来妆点他们的世界？惧怕寒冷就不应该喜欢雪，这样看来我应该拿出所有的勇气来面对寒冷，只是天气再寒冷，给我更多的雪，好么？

雪花，是逆境中的希望。

早晨经过那家驴肉火烧的店，想到一件事，如果我之前在他店里消费的时候：
他说：“为什么有时候你来，有时候不来？不来的时候吃什么早餐阿？”
我说：“有的时候不来，是因为不想等。”
他说：“那每天约好一个时间，我把驴肉火烧做好，你经过的时候过来拿，你觉得怎么样？”
我说：“好办法，顺便还可以让我上班时间变得规律起来”
……

这样，无形之中，他就多了一个常客。

page 1 of 108 (1078 posts) >>