Listing down some interesting quotes I read in Clean Code by Robert Martin. To quote him, reading these things would only serve as a feel good exercise without the actual meat of his methods. Nevertheless, I felt they’re too good to not make it to my blog. Enjoy!

Nonsense! We will never be rid of code, because code represents the details of the requirements. At some level those details cannot be ignored or abstracted; they have to be specified. And specifying requirements in such detail that a machine can execute them is programming. Such a specification is code.

Of course you have been impeded by bad code. So then—why did you write it? Were you trying to go fast? Were you in a rush? Probably so. Perhaps you felt that you didn’t have time to do a good job; that your boss would be angry with you if you took the time to clean up your code. Perhaps you were just tired of working on this program and wanted it to be over. Or maybe you looked at the backlog of other stuff that you had promised to get done and realized that you needed to slam this module together so you could move on to the next. We’ve all done it.

They may defend the schedule and requirements with passion; but that’s their job. It’s your job to defend the code with equal passion. To drive this point home, what if you were a doctor and had a patient who demanded that you stop all the silly hand-washing in preparation for surgery because it was taking too much time?2 Clearly the patient is the boss; and yet the doctor should absolutely refuse to comply. Why? Because the doctor knows more than the patient about the risks of disease and infection. It would be unprofessional (never mind criminal) for the doctor to comply with the patient. So too it is unprofessional for programmers to bend to the will of managers who don’t understand the risks of making messes. The Primal Conundrum Programmers face a conundrum of basic values.

Clean code always looks like it was written by someone who cares. There is nothing obvious that you can do to make it better. All of those things were thought about by the code’s author, and if you try to imagine improvements, you’re led back to where you are, sitting in appreciation of the code someone left for you—code left by someone who cares deeply about the craft.

Will update from time to time…

Thank you for reading!

Listing down some interesting quotes from the book ‘A brief history of nearly everything’ by Bill Bryson.

• Although the creation of a universe might be very unlikely, Tryon emphasized that no one has counted the failed attempts.
• He makes an analogy with a very large clothing store: “If there is a large stock of clothing, you’re not surprised to find a suit that fits.”
• “Huge parts of the world are still unexplored” “In terms of trilobites?” “No, in terms of everything”
• Oh fuck, not another phylum
• It is very easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours — arguably stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additional existence. Life, in short, just wants to be. But — and here’s an interesting point — for the most part it doesn’t want to be much.
• To a first approximation, as David Raup likes to say, all species are extinct.
• …but you could have all Bdelloid Rotifer experts in the world to dinner and not have to borrow plates from the neighbors.
• “And I suppose that’s why you value someone who spends forty-two years studying a single species of plants, even if it doesn’t produce anything terribly new?” “Precisely”
• From an evolutionary point of view, sex is really just a reward mechanism to encourage us to pass on our genetic material.
• It cannot be said too often: All life is one. That is, and I suspect will forever prove to be, the most profound true statement there is.

Thank you for reading!

The motivation for reading this book came during the Jagriti Yatra when I was recommended this book, not once or twice, but thrice during the 15 days by three independent people. I’d only heard about this book before that. So on returning, I made it a point to buy a paperback and read this book and see for myself what all the fuss it about. I wasn’t disappointed!

As the name suggests, the book is about us, humans (unless you’re a cat, in which case it is about your beloved owner). The author starts off by giving a description of what our species was like a hundred thousand years ago. From there, he describes the major events or changes, in his opinion, that shaped the world as we see it today. The book is divided into four major parts, namely; Cognitive revolution, Agricultural revolution, unification of humankind and Scientific revolution. Each part focuses on a change in the way of life of humans that carved the way things moved forward, until this very day. The main idea is that humans have learnt how to collaborate in large numbers by believing in a common ‘myth’, a concept that the author nicely explains with the example of Peugeot Company.

The book is really well written for a wide range of audience. If you have the slightest interest in historical events, pick this book up. If you have ever awed at the accomplishments of humans, telescopes in space, footsteps on Moon and on Everest top and deep down in the Mariana trench, give this book a shot. Love biology, or psychology or just reading about cultures? This book is for you. In short, the content is so widespread that it leaves you wondering how much must the author had researched to write this book.

One thing that you must consciously realize is that, if you leave out the first part, the next three contain huge amounts of opinions of the author. Initially, I made this small mistake of reading this book as a fact book, which my manager accurately pointed out, this book isn’t. This book is a novel (even the author mentions it), and not a history book, and as such, while most things are accurate, the inferences are author’s own and so are many other things. But that’s okay. You cannot possible fit in the entire human history in 450 odd pages, and hence there will be some subjectivity and biases (even history, for that matter, is biased based on who is recording the events), but on the whole, if you’re a person with an open mind, you’ll really appreciate the writing.

And there’s a lot to learn from even the author’s inferences. The entire book is like you taking a step away and zooming out on life. Why are things the way they are? Author tries to give you a reasonable perspective, based on historical evidence.

And it really widens your own thought horizon. Knowing about the lives of our ancestors, the hunters and foragers in the plains of Africa, then the farmers and all the dynasts and dictators, the wars and the discoveries, you inevitably question yourself, your priorities and the fundamental questions of life itself. It is as if, you knew many of these things only intuitively, but the author takes it a step further and explains them by joining the dots and drawing conclusions. Reading it from the author’s POV, understanding the ideas of liberalism and how it is very different from what Buddhism teaches, ideas of communism, of capitalism and the various religions that we identify ourselves with, is a good experience.

I’d highly recommend this book. An experience that you shouldn’t miss.

Probably one of the highest recommended books in the software world, this isn’t your typical tutorial/guide/reference book on programming or software engineering. Rather, this book is a series of ideas, more or less independent, on large software projects.

I’ll have to admit that you should get some actual software development/management time under your belt before picking up this book, otherwise it is very difficult to make the right connections, which is very important given this is a book full of essays from the 70s software development era. Details might have gone outdated, and many other things won’t really work in today’s fast paced startups who live by the fail fast mantra. Nevertheless, the human aspect of software is very accurately depicted in the text. Why software projects are difficult to manage? Why does adding man power to an already late project only makes it ‘later’? Why is communication important? These are some of the interesting questions that the author addresses in the text with his opinions and experiences.

I won’t go into the content of the book, as I would never be able to do justice to it. If you’re looking for a short summary, refer the Wikipedia page for the book. Highly recommended if you’re a software developer and would like to read one of the rare kind of books in our field, a book on the human aspect of software engineering.

I watched this video on Youtube that had a list of 10 books that every student should read. The first one, Deep Work by Cal Newport, was of particular interest to me, and I decided to read it. The reason? I’m a distraction junkie.

Introduction

On the highest possible level, the book is divided into two parts. The first part is where the author tries to convince us that deep work is valuable, that it results in a greater degree of productivity, that many successful people who create value embrace a state of hyper-focused concentration towards the work they’re doing. The book illustrates how an obligation by employers (especially in knowledge work) to respond to emails quickly, be active on social media websites and to work in a common work space full of noise, interruptions and shallow tasks (like frequent meetings) has resulted in a generation of knowledge workers who have accepted distractions as a way to life.

The second part assumes that we’ve accepted that the deep life is a good life, a life well lived and gives us a set of guidelines that we can follow to get the most out of our work hours. The reason for this part is quite clear. If I was asked to switch off my email for 3 days straight, or if an employee decides that he/she will not participate in their team’s daily meetings, that will have adverse effects on our careers. Best case, people will be upset with your delayed responses to their messages, worst case, you lose your job. Now how does one strike a balance between the two parts of their work life, the immediate part (shallow work) and the important part (deep work), without sacrificing a hand and a leg in exchange.

Following are a few key takeaways for me from the book. I’ll try to summarize each point in a line or two. The quotes are from the book itself.

Need for Deep Work

The author mentions the three groups of people who will thrive in the current economy, where most of the jobs are getting replaced by computer code.

• those who can work with intelligent machines
• those who are the best at what they do
• those with the capital to invest

Now unless you belong to the last category, you’ll need to produce high quality work at an elite level. A lot of people can write computer code. But the few who create something of value with code that the masses then use is elite work. Deep work isn’t for those who wish to live an ordinary life. You can be a good engineer who does what the job expects from you and never need deep work. Deep work comes in when you want to push the abilities of your concentration muscle to its limits and produce high value in your profession.

Now depending on how we look at it, due to the social media / distraction media outburst, the number of knowledge workers who can work deeply has reduced significantly. It opens up a whole new opportunity for people who still have the ability (or can train themselves) to do deep work. And deep work is still valuable. Look at all the various artists, painters, musicians and other creative workers. It is common to see deep work in their profession because of it’s immediate effects. Deep work gives these people a sense of meaning in their work. But in case of knowledge workers, Internet (and the associated distractions) is an inevitable part of their lives, and that is why deep work is becoming increasingly rare here.

I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an email address. I’d used email since about 1975, and it seems to me that 15 years of email is plenty for one lifetime. Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration. – Donald Knuth

Embrace Boredom

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets… it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.

My personal problem right here. When I get 10 minutes of free time, I look into my phone. I have tonnes of applications that then keep me engaged (“updated”). I have content aggregators like Reddit which make sure I’m never short of content that can quench my thirst for distractions. And this is while I actively realize that the stuff I’m reading isn’t of much value to my future. To use an analogy, it is like having street side “Chinese” food. You know it isn’t good for your health, but you end up giving in to the temptations. Now, the obvious demerit to this is an adverse effect to your health. But what about the effect it has on your will power. Giving in to temptations and desires weakens your “mental muscle” for will power. It becomes harder and harder to resist the temptation when you keep giving in over and over again. The only way to train this muscle is to actively resist the temptation for distractions.

And apart from this, giving in to easy distractions keep your mind busy and dries it off its ability to work on value generating problems. It does not let quality thoughts come into your mind for subconscious processing, and as a result, you slowly but steadily lose the power to focus and do deep work altogether.

(Quit) Social Media

The author talks about all the adverse effects social media has on our productivity. Having a “presence” on websites like Facebook and Twitter, posting regular updates to keep your “audience” engaged and thus boosting whatever business you’re in, is not only a very misinformed thought, but also something that has become quite common in the information age. Here the author makes some great counterpoints on why, even if social networking has some benefits to it for some people, most people are better off spending the same time on work that can earn them the respect and reputation that can outweigh any benefits of a social media presence in the first place. Not to mention, this can save you the thoughts about “what your friends might be doing in their life right now?” when you’re working on something important.

Miscellaneous and Conclusion

The author talks about (surprisingly) detailed ways to get back your time from shallow activities. From talking to your boss explicitly about the ratio of your shallow to deep work, to answering an email such that it does not generate follow-ups that will take more of your time, to simply filtering what emails to actually answer. These are some real life tips that can be embraced by many knowledge workers.

I think this was one of the best self help books that I’ve read (I’ve not read a lot of them, to be honest), just as useful as “How to win friends and influence people” was for building relationships. The author’s use of simple language, of logical arguments (that most of us think about, but never question or go a step further into researching), examples of strategies, real world case studies and how to practically apply them into our “busy” schedules are some of the reasons that make reading this book truly worthwhile. I would highly recommend it to all those who feel “busy” all day, but don’t get a lot done. Who feel the need to check emails, messengers, social networks every 30 minutes to not miss out on the important stuff. Who want to overcome their addiction to shallow irrelevant “news articles” and memes. I’ll leave you with this…

Ironically, jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time, because like flow activities they have built-in goals, feedback rules, and challenges, all of which encourage one to become involved in one’s work, to concentrate and lose oneself in it. Free time, on the other hand, is unstructured, and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed.

A little late with May’s book review, but here it is. This month’s book was a little unconventional (for me), and the first of its kind that I’ve read. The book is called Siddhartha and it describes the spiritual quest of a young Brahmin boy named Siddhartha and his friend Govinda.

If you’re planning to read the novel to the fullest, stop reading here and pick that book up. The next section is my summary, for personal documentation purposes, and not recommended to the reader as it would spoil the flow for you.

The book starts with Siddhartha and Govinda leaving their homes and families to seek the knowledge of Self, living their lives as ‘Samanas’ and embracing asceticism. Both friends separate when Govinda wishes to join Buddha and his disciples as a monk, while Siddhartha differs and believes that true wisdom, unlike knowledge, cannot be communicated by one person to another. Thus, Siddhartha parts ways, crosses a river with the help of a Ferryman and reaches the town, where the author describes his life with ‘Kamala’ as an ordinary person, amidst wealth, pleasures of life and ‘Sansara’. He soon realizes that this is not what he would wanted, and leaves it all only to end by the side of the same river he had crossed earlier, on the verge of committing suicide.

But then, just as he wakes up from an enlightening dream, he meets his friend Govinda again, who is surprised to find Siddhartha in rich cloths and nice shoes. Siddhartha decides to approach the ferryman and work with him for he wanted to learn from the river. He lives a modest life with the ferryman, who is a good friend and an excellent listener. Later he meets Kamala again, this time with ‘Little Siddhartha’, his son. Kamala, who’s bitten by a poisonous snake, dies in the Vasudeva’s (ferryman’s) hut. Siddhartha has a tough time with his son, who finally leaves him and runs away in the town, the same way Siddhartha had run away from his father when he was young. Siddhartha realizes the cycle in life, the river communicates extensively with him the wisdom that he had been seeking. Finally he is at peace. He tells everything to Govinda, who after realizing his friend has attained what he had always looked for, decides to leave Siddhartha and disappears in the forest.

Years pass by and Siddhartha turns old. He meets Govinda one day, and they exchange their past stories. Govinda, who turned into a Buddha follower, is still searching, and Siddhartha tells him that Govinda would never find what he’s looking for as long as he’s searching for it with a goal in his mind, as opposed to finding that thing with an open mind. Govinda has a hard time understanding Siddhartha’s mind. He is asked by Siddhartha to kiss his forehead. Govinda, on doing so, learns what he was seeking all along. He then tearfully bows to Siddhartha, and leaves. Here the novel ends.

This was the first spiritual novel that I’ve read, and it had a lot of thought provoking text in it. The author does poetry in his way and it is a delight to read the chapters, visualizing the parts and ‘seeing’ everything through Siddhartha’s eyes. If you are, like me, not much into fiction, give this book a try. The emotions it generates, the quest, the simplicity in the stories yet the depth in the message is simply amazing. Totally recommended.