Some tags can’t be avoided specially when you love to answer them!! I will try to precise.

How old were you when you first started programming?

11 years

How did you get started in programming?

Personal interest. It was in school when names for those interested in computer classes were asked for and there we were – 5-6 guys.

What was your first language?

BASIC

What was the first real program you wrote?

I consider Matrix Multiplication as my first real program

What languages have you used since you started programming?

Java, C, C++, VB, VC++, C#, PHP, JavaScript, HTML, PL/SQL, ASP, AJAX,

What was your first professional programming gig?

Website of my Department in which I studied

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?

Definitely

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?

Keep learning

What’s the most fun you’ve ever had programming?

Interacting with really intelligent and practical people while facing the challenges

I am trying to continue the trend started by me when 2006 was ending. To summarize the things in the way that you can recall them later, more easily than ever.

Here is the first series of that kind (you can also find same list for last year) -

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
   1. Continued my job for 2 years (of course that is an achievement when it is for first in 3 years of career)
   2. Completed NetAmp application – an app to play music over network
   3. Found my love
   4. Traveled abroad / US (Writing from there only)
   5. Visited Disneyland and Universal Studios
   6. Watched lot and lot of movies (I still can’t believe that I managed to watch 50 movies in 2 months!)
   7. Visited Historical Monuments in Capital nearby
   8. Met with old time mate (Happy)
2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

   Oh yes I kept it. I don’t have habit of leaving impossible things like that. If it couldn’t be done in 2006, it was kept in 2007. Hey Krishna, are you listening? Of course, making another one for year 2008 and this time, again it is next to impossible for a person like me!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

   Luckily NO.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

   No.

5. What countries did you visit?

   US

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?

   Remembrance (I think it isn’t about resolution)

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory?

   27/07/2007, 04/12/2007 and 13/12/2007 (all sum up to mah lucky number as I have realized just now)

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

   Discovered Love

9. What was your biggest failure?

   Umm…None.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

    Yes. Cough and Cold for quite long time during Cricket World Cup

11. What was the best thing you bought?

    I never buy things rather I present them to myself – 2 GFs / Laptops (dv9502 and dv6500t CTO NB) and 2 External HDDs (160 GB LACIE and 1 TB Western Digital)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
    1. Jo
    2. Ritu
    3. Puneet’s laughs
    4. Pankaj’s company during celebrations
    5. Nitesh Gupta for wonderful rides
    6. My Brother
    7. Archana for wonderful compliment
    8. Happy
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

    Three of mah colleagues

14. Where did most of your money go?
    1. Laptops
    2. External HDDs
    3. Clothes
    4. Movies
    5. Coffee
    6. Food
    7. Discotheques
    8. Shelter
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
    1. Love

I nevet thought that I will ever be able to measure any of my addictions but anything is possible when it is blogging

It is good to be among top 20%!!

I wish there had been addiction test for Programming, Media, Food and Sleeping.

There was another discussion about love over weekend.

It seems like I am passing through an age where almost everyone likes to discuss about this word as I encounter such frequent conversations with the people of my age-group.

This time, the topic was – What is true love?

The three final symptoms were found out to be -

1. When you feel that the other one is right match for you
2. When someone approaches you and makes you feel like special in that someone’s life

    

   The third and most commonly agreed upon symptom was -

3. When you realize that other one is just perfect for you and that one is equally passionate about you

There was sharing of stories and personal experiences as well as opinions. Without revealing any identities, some interesting stories went like -

Someone A fell (it sounds negative in general) in love with other one B. But there was no acceptance by B. Although B was respondent but feared from society and community. Can it be called love? There is no love at all when there is fear which is mistaken as respect most of the times. Respect never discourages anyone to get into love.

NEVER CRY FOR ANY RELATION IN LIFE

BECAUSE FOR THE ONE WHOM YOU CRY

WILL NEVER LET YOU CRY

In other example, Y approached X but just to let X know that it is time for X to propose Y . Funny but it happened in 2 out of 5 cases.

And in another case, M loved N but M didn’t know if it is right thing to happen. Eh…these confusions.

There are species in this world who like other one, are possessive about that one, want to be with, don’t want to loose but also, fear from accepting the truth, accepting what is right but of course, not ready to let that one go. These are the people who afraid from Boy-Friend, Girl-Friend tags. Such species are most probably, your true mates but they can turn out to be your biggest weakness at other times. They are respectable but they can prove to be biggest obstacle to your mental and emotional growth. Such people were found to be part of of lives of everyone involved in discussion. (Anyone smelling Love Actually?)

Duh…life isn’t fair…but still it isn’t that bad

The CashEdge cap. It is specifically released for the CashEdge Cricket team members.

Proud to be a CashEdge Cricket Team player. We won the first match while wearing this cap against Simcom.

And on the other side, Prabh/Prabhjot Singh (our dear Sardar ji) has started a poll for the best sport-person of our batch – the batch of B.Tech. 2004, DCSE, Punjabi University (or Punjabi Junibrashty as Pankaj Dev spells it !)

I watched Matrix one more time on this weekend. If not hundreds of times, I have watched this sequel (The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions) for at-least tens of times. If you love technology, action, thrill, romance and what not, you believe that Artificial Intelligence can do wonders, this is the The Sequel to watch out. First time, I had watched The Matrix during graduation when in next semester, we were going to learn AI. After that, it became my favorite movie specially when the fiction seems quite possible and realistic to you. If you get bored of watching your favorite movie again and again, watch it in other language you know and you will know many new things especially when it is quite complex movie. This time I watched it in Hindi – all three parts (thanks to bro. Yes I was at my hometown on this weekend) and I discovered lot of new things which I didn’t know before. I would like to watch this movie in all the 4 languages that I know. Every time, I watch this movie, I find few more interesting facts which I couldn’t understand previously, somethings which I never knew before, just like I discover new meanings when I re-read some old issue of Digit (:)) or Gita, Koran or Bible (well that doesn’t mean at all that I am quite religious specially when I don’t go to any religious place. I read these scriptures for self-improvement.) I always wished such movie to be created in Bollywood than just copying it.

Free your mind

Here is a transition that I went through few weeks ago and I swear, it was too difficult to have this experience!

And if you still have some time that you can spend on reading similar interesting stuff, Mandar has made a quite “interesting post” (The Love Shtory) for first time in ages over his blog .