Sunil Shenoy

I first heard someone says “long time listener first time caller” some six years ago in a podcast I was listening to on 5by5 network. These words stuck with me. I can imagine being uncomfortable calling a radio show or podcast. You are talking to someone comfortable talking on podcast/radio, but you, the person on the other end, have not done this before. An agreement/saying that puts the person calling for the first time at ease. I wish more industries/avenues had this kind of agreement/saying.

Perhaps it is a way for the caller to have it both ways: “long time listener” establishes credentials in terms of knowledge…. but if they blow it, their excuse is that they are a “first-time caller”. In talk radio land, I guess that first-time caller label is supposed to evoke sympathy from the host.

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Not knowing something before walking into a meeting would scare me. I remember being terrified of such days where I would have to give a speech—not knowing everything about what I was going to talk. Scary.

Yet here I was today, discussing being part of a meeting tomorrow and not knowing what I would say in the forum did not put my mind racing through a hundred different thoughts. I am now somehow comfortable with being new at something. I am comfortable knowing that it takes time to get better at something. Being better at something requires dedicated time and effort. Somehow learning this has made a world of difference to most things I approach these days.

I want to get better at a few things this year, and I am comfortable knowing that it will take time to get there.

I spent two hours yesterday playing this game Cashflow Classic with a few friends.

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a 1997 book written by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter. It advocates the importance of financial literacy, financial independence and building wealth by investing in assets, real estate investing, starting and owning businesses, and increasing one’s financial intelligence.

I remember reading this book more than ten years ago after a cousin suggested I give it a read. I don’t know much from the book now, but playing this game yesterday got me to look into the last part of the paragraph above. “Increasing one’s financial intelligence”. That’s one area I wish a lot more people got better at, including myself.

Instead of having meetings, people “talk” to each other via GitHub, Notion, and (occasionally) Slack, expecting responses within 24 hours. Because there are no standups or “syncs” and some projects can involve expensive feedback loops to collaborate, working this way requires clear and thoughtful communication.

Everyone writes well and writes a lot.

There are no deadlines either. We ship incrementally, and launch things whenever the stuff in development is better than what’s currently in production.

No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees

Reading through this article, reminded me of my time working with my previous company. We almost had the same way of working. We did not write a lot, though. I wish we had. I have always wanted to document the thought process behind each page, element, feature—something for me to improve on going forward.

I have never been in front of a professional video camera setup before. I have been part of various zoom and WhatsApp calls, but none was going to be recorded and used for social media campaigns.

Two days ago, I was asked to give a video testimonial for the gym I have been exercising in the last four months. I am having a great time at the gym and the community there has been amiable.

Part of my video testimonial mentions how I now look forward to going back to exercise versus previously being a struggle to walk myself to the gym. F45 does make training fun. I also realised I enjoy group classes more than exercising by myself or with a friend at the gym.

I can talk quite fluently during 1-1 conversation, but somehow yesterday, I kept fumbling when in front of the camera. My thought process kept breaking. It’s been a long time since that has happened to me. Matt, who recorded after me was excellent. He was able to articulate his answers well and kept it clear and concise.

Took me back to last year, when I was trying out podcasting. I would spend a lot of time editing the audio file—something for me to improve on in 2021.

I have been programming using PHP for more than a decade now. It was the first programming language I learnt, and I have continued to build most of the software in the last few years using PHP. I have tried various PHP frameworks. Laravel, CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Symfony, Yii and Slim. Laravel and CodeIgniter being my choice of framework most of the times.

I was looking to start two new side projects in 2021. Having worked with PHP for a long time now, I decided it was time to learn something new. It’s always good to see what other languages had to offer, and since these were side projects, I did not have to weigh a lot on pros/cons. Rails has always fascinated me as a language. I last worked on Rails 8 years ago, and I enjoyed my experience.

It definitely did not feel like riding a bicycle. I had to start at level 0.

TryRuby: Learn programming with Ruby was my first stop. Armed with a lot of built in functions knowledge and syntax for how to loop through data, I was ready to now install rails and get started.

Ruby on Rails Guides has been my goto to learn rails. Very well written and easy to understand.

I am hoping to talk more about the project by the end of Feb. 🤞🏻

You ask, “Are you bored?” Even if you don’t have a gut feeling, it’s a good question to randomly ask your team. When I ask, I look you straight in the eyes and if you can’t stare me in the face and answer, I’m going to keep digging until you look me in the eye.

Bored People Quit.

Worth a read for sure. Sometimes its just as simple as asking the question directly and carefully listening to the person on the other end.

I should make good on the part of my things to be better at this year “Write/share more often here.”

I was reading https://patwalls.com yesterday and the daily writing habits struct a chord with me. I have always admired Seth Godin for his daily blog posts for over six years now.

“Maybe I won’t have something to say every day”. I am stuck with this thought each time I decide to write more often. I started a podcast last year during the lockdown, and the first few weeks were easy to record. After the first few weeks, I was not sure what topic to record on. The lockdown was not too kind either. I lost all motivation to record. The mic went back into the boxes and are yet to see the light of day.

But I should get myself to record and write more often. Maybe this time it will be different. 🤞🏻

I have not missed an Apple Event about hardware releases for the last five years. I know I will not purchase the hardware released for most years, but it’s been an event a few friends watch together(now remotely), and the whole affair is a treat to watch.

Drastic improvements are difficult. The road leading up to Apple’s M1 processor, from what I been reading took ten years. From Apple’s A4 Chip in 2010 to A14 in 2020. Apple has been slowly improving on its chip design and the workload it can handle.

After watching Apple’s event on November 10’s 2020, I could not wait to start reading the reviews. The next few days and weeks, I continued to read and watch popular youtube reviewers and bloggers talk about the M1. Everyone had good to great things to say about the M1. ARM-based computers were much better than x86. I had to try it out for myself.

I had been saving money for my trip to Melbourne during the Christmas + New Year’s break, but due to the Covid outbreak in NSW, borders to other states were closed. The money got re-routed to purchasing the new M1 Mac Mini. My first desktop purchase after 14 years.

I opted for the 8 GB / 512 GB Mac Mini. I read a few opinion pieces about 8 GB vs 16 GB and was convinced about getting the 16 GB until I read this review.

Apple’s 8GB M1 Silicon isn’t Magic, but it is Magical

That’s the problem with future-proofing, Apple keeps reinventing the future.

I have been using the Mac Mini for three weeks now, and it been a joy to use. All the reviews are accurate. It is significantly faster than my 2017 Macbook Pro / 8 GB / 256 GB config. Now my primary work machine. MacBook Pro now becomes my goto travel buddy accompanying me on all my road trips/vacations.

If you are on the sidelines about buying the Apple M1, my recommendation would be. Go for it.

I thought I was running late to publish the birthday post I looked forward to writing each year, but scrolling through the feed looks like I am 10 days early from last years blog post. Five days late from the date I used to publish before, but ten days earlier from last year. Progress?

I should start by stating how much I like writing—this blog post and writing in general. Penning down my thoughts bring immense joy, and I always kick myself for not writing more regularly. Besides travelling, programming, hanging out with friends and food, writing has to be up there on the list, bringing joy.

2020 has been one rollercoaster of a ride. A year which I think everyone will remember forever. COVID-19 and so many changes everyone had to make to get by. If you are reading this in 2020, here is a virtual hug from me to you. 🤗 We all have been through enough, and I hope 2021 is better for every one of us.

I went through the list of things I set myself to do in 2020, and I managed to do the following.

• Move to an apartment somewhere close to the city. Cut down on travel time and spend that time reading/learning. ✅ ( Moved away from the city in the second half, more on that below)

• More physical exercise. Joining salsa classes in Jan. ( Salsa got replaced by high-intensity training)

• Buy/rent a car and make more road trips across Australia. (6K on the odometer already since buying the car in July)

• Support more small businesses. Buy local and from Indie / small business owners.

• Spend more time with family and friends.

Things I did not succeed at:

• Write/share more often on this blog. (😞)

• Travel to at least three new countries. I am looking at you, Japan, Nepal and Finland. (travel in 2020.. naaaa)

Overall, 2020 went well with the things I had set myself to do.

Personal

I moved into an apartment close to the city in Feb 2020 and was so excited about the move. COVID hit in the third week of me moving into the place. One of the reasons for moving to the city was to be closer to work, and with work from home being the norm for a few months, paying the high rent did not make sense. Moved back to a new place in the same suburb I lived before the move and I have loved it here. The apartment is excellent, and living close to friends has been incredible. Move again in 2021? Maybe.

I joined F45 in the second half of 2020 after having not exercised in the first half of 2020. I did dabble in-home exercise based workouts using a few apps during lockdown but realised that I enjoy group activities rather than exercising alone.

I got my drivers license this year, after four attempts. I guess 4th time was the charm. I should write more about the lessons learnt and what finally worked to help clear the test. Following, the license, I bought a second hand Mazda 3 in the second half after COVID rules got a bit relaxed and it has been fun driving around NSW, Australia. Every second weekend, me and a few friends would head out to explore a new place in the state. One of the best purchases after moving to Australia.

Lockdown did also make me reflect on how much I miss my family and friends back home. At one point, I remember calling a few friends and telling them that at the end of all this, I might pack my bags and move back. Staying away from them for so long was not part of my plan of moving to Australia. I always wanted to have the freedom to visit them when I got a chance and now that the new world did not permit for this or could permit from this, I wanted to make sure that I live as close as possible. A decision I continue to think about from time to time.

Australia has been a great place to live, though. I continue to enjoy the food, the places and people here. A few people have told me that I should try the different kinds of wine Australia offers. Something for me to consider in 2021.

work

I have had a great time working at ELMO this year. From online zoom meetings in the first half of 2020 to move back to the second half office. Moving back to the office has been great in cutting down on the number of Zoom calls, we all had to be part of in 2020.

I enjoy working with the team and all the conversations we have. From work to random banter and the cupcakes. I love the cupcakes near the office, in 2020 it became an every Monday treat. <3

Its been great diving into the code and understand everything a bit better about the software I maintain. I had a conversation with my manager a few weeks ago, and I mentioned this to him. From taking a few days to find the root cause of an issue to now taking a few hours, its been a great learning experience on how to structure software and why everyone needs to spend more time writing tests for the software they build. I cannot think of writing a new software application today without enough test coverage.

Tools I learnt this year:

• Cypress
• Got a bit better at React(still a lot more to know)
• Infrastructure as code(AWS ElasticBeanstalk)
• Pipeline setup for Bitbucket and Gitlab

Things I want to get better at in 2021

• Swift
• End to End testing frameworks.
• Writing better unit tests for PHP and Javascript.

Travel

I would spend the most time writing this section during my yearly blog post. Going through Google Maps and its traced location would take a few hours. This year its been easy. With international travel banned due to COVID, my travel this year was restricted within Australia. However, I did manage to squeeze in one visit to New Zealand the second week of Feb.

Places visited in NSW, Australia:

• Bowral and Mittagong
• Gosford
• Newcastle
• Nelson Bay
• Wagga Wagga
• Port Macquarie

Goals for 2021

• Start to learn Salsa or some other form of a dance routine. It has been a long term goal of learning how to dance—time to get started.
• Try harder to be in touch with friends and family.
• Write/share more often here.
• More road trips.
• If international travelling opens up again in 2021, visit India, Japan and Nepal.
• Build and maintain at least two apps on iOS and Mac OS. Side projects 2021.

I hope you all have an excellent 2021. 🙌🏻

I often think soft skills don’t get talked about a whole lot. Was thinking about this last week and noticed this twitter thread.

soft skills I’d tell my younger, jr software engineer self. 🧵

“We need to have this feature shipped next week”, “we got to add this feature the competition has, or our customers will not use our software”. I have heard these words so many times over the last few years.

My work now primarily involves maintaining software which gets no new features. Just minor tweaks to fix issues which now surface due to data scale not considered for before. A few tweaks to database indexes. No new features, just small improvements and bug fixes.

I considered this peaceful work. There is an urgency to get the issue fixed as the customer has been waiting to generate that report, but improving software already used by a lot of people gives me immense joy. Customers hardly write to us anymore asking for new features to be added. They know what the software has to offer and are happy with how it fits into their day to day workflow. What makes them not happy is when the software is not available to be used or displays a blank screen when generating reports.

Focusing my time on availability and speed aspects of the software, rather than rushing to ship new features has been an area I did not think I would enjoy spending time on.

Sketch published this blog post a few days ago. Why we’re proud to build a truly native Mac app.

I went through Twitter that day and there was a lot of discussion about the post, with people on one side of the camp stating that Sketch was “Feel’n the squeeze from Figma.”

Is having a platform-native app a competing factor? For me, the answer has always been “it depends”. Based on the type of software you are building, native vs cross-platform could be a significant advantage. I would want my coding editor to be a native app. I have tried cross-platform solutions, and they have not been a joy to use. Same with a graphic software program or my web browser. Native has the advantage of not having to go through another layer of abstraction before getting to the action I want to perform.

If your software has a collaborative feature though, then you need to be cross-platform. Not everyone uses a Mac. I hope more software companies considered building native apps for each platform they want people to use them on. I have tried a few electron based apps and they are not what I would call “enjoyable software”.

My daily commute now includes 1 hour 20 mins train ride. 40 mins each way. In Mumbai, India, I would hardly get space to get in and stand. Now, here in NSW, Australia, I have been lucky enough to live in a suburb where I a place to sit down for the entire journey. A welcome change.

I like listening to podcasts on the way to work and on the way back catch up on my Youtube subscriptions. I am always running behind on my podcast episodes, though. From the 12 podcasts that I listen to, I usually get through 4 or 5 episodes during the week, as new episodes include themselves in the playlist.

There is Spotify, which creates excellent playlists for me to enjoy. Some days I switch from listening to podcasts to Spotify and monday reminds me of being extra behind on the podcast playlist.

I have now come to peace with the fact that I might never catch up on all the podcasts that I would like to listen.

My engineering manager James, asked me this question last week “What job would you want to do two jobs from now”.

I was thinking about this a lot last week. I even asked this question to my sister during our phone call over the weekend, and she said that’s a great way to look at career progression.

I have never really given this a thought until James asked me this question. I enjoy building software. I enjoy the whole process from wireframes to thinking about user flow to creating the frontend to writing the backend code. I also enjoy the process of setting up the server and ensuring that the app was up and running. It’s all an enjoyable process in the quest to building software which helps people accomplish the task they set out to do using the software.

I also do enjoy performance monitoring. Part of me wants to focus on ensuring that the software provides good user experience and speed is a significant factor towards good UX.

After giving it a lot of thought, one thing I would enjoy working towards has to be building excellent frontend experience for users and monitoring its performance and usability. Seems like a lot when I think about it, but that’s a goal I want to move towards getting better at.

I have always thought what would make a really good pricing model for software, and after reading through Cabel’s post on Panic’s Dev Issues board, I think I agree with Cabel.

You buy Nova, and you keep it forever. You do not need to pay anything more for the software to keep working forever — it’s yours. In addition, you get one free year of feature and bug updates. After that year, you can pay a steeply discounted price to continue to receive another year of updates — but that is totally optional.

Maintenance is often the most challenging part of software development. Ensuring that the software keeps working/improving and remains bug-free after the initial version is shipped is the most time-consuming part.

I wish more companies did this. You buy, keep it forever at that major version. All future versions come at a cost, which users of the previous version get to buy at a discount.

Not many people read this blog. I don’t write that often either. I should. I enjoy the process of putting my thoughts down.

A few weeks ago, someone asked me what I write about here. Nothing, in particular, I said. Whatever I feel like, it’s usually about tech or travel or something personal. Should I pick a topic and continue to explore it further or keep it general the way it is right now? I have often asked myself this question and have also chosen the keep in general route. It’s more fun for me that way.

I have not written here often though. I should. I miss writing.

The last few months have not been easy. COVID has taken its toll. Somehow writing was the last thing on the mind. Recording podcast was also the last thing in mind.

I miss recording. I packed my mic during my move and am yet to unpack it.

Time to get back to recording and writing. I have said this often before, though. 🙈