Opentools

As I have mentioned before in my blog , I am working on a open source project called opentools. (Click to find out more).
This has been started by my previous team's architect (this is the guy who always tells me to "Present/Lookat facts minus emotions" ;-) ) and we are nearing completion of first version of the first tool that we plan to put up :-)
I was working on this for sometime now .... should be checked in sometime this week !
Ofcourse , this is in Java - so pretty sure lot of people might be/might not be interested in it (depending on how you look at it !).

Now that this is nearly done (that is impl done : a small design issue left to be ironed out) ... looking for suggestions on what to attempt next.
Though we are primarily targetting generic developer tools , any specific requirements are also welcome (we migh be able to generify them and make a specific module/customisation to satisfy your requirement !)

Looking forward to ideas/suggestions - either add to comment's or mail me at "mridul@gmail.com" Thanks !!


In other news ,
* I was looking at and reading up on scheme , pretty impressed ! Right now I have to put my brain through a blender to understand it ;) ... but getting the hang of it with each passing day !

* Joined Orkut a while back thanks to guru , thinking of exploring it more coming weeks. Assuming I get the time for it - work has been a bit hectic for a while and since I am nearly done with my prototype impl for work , should be able to get some slack : what with Thanksgiving off in US and the rest !

* Bought a whole bunch of Doctor Who books from Crossword last week - been busy reading them : felt the same way I used to feel when I was in school and used to devour them @ 10+ per week ! Nostalgia express to catch up on those characters !!!

* Net conn at home expired : darn !
Was considering seriously switching away from my cable net provider, but all other options seem a bit too expensive or just a bit too much for my requirements ..... think I will switch back to cable. Will try to arm twist him into givng a good deal :-D

* Saw Finding Nemo finally - the movie Rocks !!! Pixar guys are real dudes to render something like that ! AMAZING in caps I say !!!
In some scenes though you wish it was a tad bit better done : but what the heck , brilliant animation work I think !!
Here is the work that started it all ! Notice the brilliant lighting effects , the kinetics : no wonder they are the leaders in this field - esp considering that this was done a while ago :)

Stupid Executives and Solaris

Most of my friends know my derision for managers , executives and the like. (Hmm , comments are IT field centric here !)
To say that I consider that entire ilk parasitic , blood sucking , expendable morons is an understatement :)
But then someone always comes along who disproves me - has happened in a positive way quiet a few times recently : which still gives me hope for the IT industry !
Now today I see yet another example of exec stupidity.

Here is a open source solaris developer's response to what was written by one of HP's VP.(Got this link from James Gosling's blog).
Geeks rule !!! :)

On more serious note : exec's should try to restrict themselves to things that they are supposed to be good at - like running the company : trying to give a tech lecture will cause them to come up close and personal with clay when they fall flat on their face (as is shown in the above "article" !!)
As an anticipatory bail : Pretty much sure that most geeks will run a sucessful company to the ground if they are given the responsibility to run it ;)

On other news - have been terribly busy : vacation have this bad habit of increasing your workload .... but then who is complaining , I just had a 10 day vacation !!!
I am also working on opentools - started by my previous team's architect : my code will get checked in there pretty soon !
Though the way I am designing and writing it - you will be able to write modules to pretty much support anything : from proxies to loadbalancers to port forwarders to reverse proxies - in a protocol independent manner.