Weekly Log #2

Alright, time for a life update. A lot of things happened in this week. Some of them are very important and worth mentioning. Although almost all thing worth mentioning, but I think you get the point. 

The first part of this week comes from the questionnaire I sent to my lecturers regarding the massive open online course application that I want to build. Even though only several of the responded my questionnaire, most of the agree to help my application. Moreover, most of the are ready to be the lecturer. I am so happy about this. :D. It makes me want to build the application quickly as possible. Now, I'm in the process of waiting of my boos approval on the application. I'm pretty sure we will build this application together in no time.

The second part is that I tried a lot of new technology that has just been came out to the stable release this week. It is very fun. I got a lot of error, but after doing some research and a lot of asking to the technology maintainer, it ran very smoothly. At this point, I realized that behind every design of new technology, there are parts that we need change our behavior or way of thinking to let the technology help us. Minimally, the technology can alleviate our life burden.

The third part is that I started to create a new blog for my community. It's krkanaan.wordpress.com. I want to make this blog can help the teenagers to hone their writing skills. I believe that writing is one of the skills you want to mastered before finishing college. You will write a lot of thing in the future. :D. At first, I will maintain this blog personally. Then, I will try to ask people to help me with the content. You need to start by yourself first in order to invite other people. That's the one of the rule of entrepreneurship. 

It has been a great week. One thing I learnt the most this week is that, if you want to do something, do it by yourself. The only thing that you can move or change is your own mind and body. Do not expect people to do a lot of things for you. It is just that simple. Now, I will get ready for next week challenges. XD. Pray for me. :)

Experience Using Ruby 2, Capistrano 3, and Rails 4

Okay, guys, this is maybe not the first time I've used bleeding edge technology or new technology, but this time, I've through a lot of painful mistakes to knowing that it is fun and hard to use new technology. It is hard because I'm categorized as early adopters. It means it is very hard to getting any help from the community. Every error I found cannot be found at Stackoverflow. I need to figure the solution by myself, by reading the documentation that I think not very well documented because it is still early, although the technology is marked as stable. Okay, it was fun because in every technology design, I believe that the inventor has a great plan to make a better life for the user.

This year is a big year for web Ruby developer. A pretty well-used programming language called Ruby comes with a new major version (2.0.0). A lot of improvement has been added to the language. Then, the most anticipated Ruby web framework also released a new major version (4.0.0). And lastly, the most used deployment gem for Ruby, Capistrano, also released a brand new major version (3.0.0). I've seen the change logs of each technology and it was awesome. I cannot wait to develop with these tools. :D.

Even though with this excitement. I know my road will not be smooth. I'm pretty sure that I need to tweak a lot to make the technology work well. So the first problem is installation. Ruby 2.0.0 need more library than Ruby 1.9.3. Not a big deal. Just install some package and it's done. The problem arise when one of the ruby library (gem) was incompatible with Rails 4.0.0, it was Active Admin. Moreover, I used NoSQL (MongoDB) and Mongoid as it's driver. So the problem is, at the time this article is written, MongoDB obejct document mapper for Rails is not stable and Active Admin for Mongoid is not very good. So, I choose to abandon MongoDB for this time and go with the lovely MySQL. It went quite smoothly. I've noticed some minor change but it is still fixable. The rage comes from when I want to deploy the application. I used two days to make the deployment works. So, the update to Capistrano (3.0.0) was quite huge rewrite to the library and the documentation was not really that good. I also need to contact the library maintainer to get the solution. Nevertheless, They solved my problems. Now, the application running smoothly at the staging server and very easy to update. I think, this is the state-of-the-art rapid development in the web right now. 

So, if I compare the Ruby-Rails-Capistrano and Python-Django-Fabric, Python still a winner compared to Ruby because it's simplicity. Rails has way too much third party library rather than Django and from the feature itself, Rails is clearly a winner cause the current stable version of Django haven't get any native migration tools. We need to wait 2 minor version to get the native migration tools. Capistrano is very much more helping than Fabric because it is designed for deployment tools, while with Fabric, you need to add more command. In the end, The world of web technology is vast and rapidly developing and it comes down with personal choice. Pick the right technology and deal with it. :D.

The Best Method of Publication

In this time, my company face quite a lot resignation letters from it's employee.  For me, it is quite devastating because one of my senior from my team resigned. I thought, this team could be together for a long time to make a solid and competitive team. learning together day by day to become better everyday. Fiuhh. So, my company quickly made a lot of publications about job offers. It is true that a lot people apply to my company, but most of them are not very good.

Back in the college day, I've learnt the best publication method that would be inviting people personally. :D. It's simple, you talk to the man or woman, tell them they are open position inside the company and ask them to fill the position, personally. I've done this a lot of times at the college life. I've increased the number a division of an organization from 20 to 50 by asking every people I met to join my team. Now, I'm doing the same for my company. I know that it is harder to ask people to  join a company rather than a college organization, but I'll do my best. After a week of invitation, I invite 15 people to come to my company, 5 responded positively, and from that 5 people, 2 has been hired. and 1 people are waiting an interview. I know this result is not as good as before, but considering this is invitation to work at a company, I think this is a great success. :)). 

Some people waste a lot of money on media and advertising. For me, it was inefficient and money wasting. Treat people like real human that has emotions, even though you've never met them. Talk to them, give them attention. Do not treat them like machine or product that you only used them. I know it is tiring and cost a lot, but it is worth it. :D.

Definition of Cool

Alright guys, I believe every people has their own point of view in understanding things. Every people has different opinion. Unfortunately, most of the people are to lazy too define every situation with their own opinion. They stuck with the majority opinion and make their opinion. I do not mind if the majority opinion is the right one, but the majority opinion is not always true. 

What I want to explain is that the definition of cool. Straight to the point. Winning things like competitions, grades, or contest is not that cool. Showing to the world that you are better then the rest of the world is not cool, at least for me. Winning people is should be the best condition to be cool. Helping people up from the depth of depression. Motivate where people are down on their feet. That's what I call cool. When people can sacrifice them self in order to help the others. Even though they know, they will suffer. When they know that the people that being helped by them is becoming better, they feel content and happy. It is enough reward for them. 

Some people even thinks that smoking, using drugs, putting tattoo, or buying some expensive unusable things like sport cars is cool. For me, saying no to smoking or things like that are even cooler. It is easy to go with your mind compulsive behavior, while in the other hand choosing to say no needs courage and great will power. For me, it true my life do not exposed to things like that, but I can say no to things like instant noodle or maybe junk food. It wasn't easy because I've been eating instant noodle regularly throughout my life. Fortunately, with a vision in the future, I can choose to stop to let my body healthier. I hope you can do cool things too. :D.

Weekly Log #1

Alright  guys, I've decided to write a log for myself. In case me in the future want to remember some little things that I would forget. It is very nice to take a lot of picture, but I prefer to write it down to explain the details. :D. Okay, start from this week.

This week, I've sent an email to one of my lecturer to spread out the questionnaire about the MOOC project. Unfortunately, I haven't got any responses from her. I will try to reach another lecturer I think. Someone less busy and more reachable. I will update the questionnaire again as my senior has given his opinion about the question.

Second, to hone my skill, I started a dummy project named SuitBase. An internal office management app and try to use the best practices of programming. I really learnt a lot like unit testing, writing documentation for every function, re factoring the code, and knowledge about the Django framework. What I think the most important thing to learnt this is week that no framework can give clean and pragmatic solution to every problems. I've tried a lot of other web framework like Rails, CodeIgniter, Yii, and .NET MVC. It is true that they give a lot of skeleton code and defined helper function, but some problems need dirty solutions. 

Third, Finally, my spammed request is answered! Two of my friends join my adventure at Suitmedia and Bukalapak. I'm so happy to hear this. The pleasure to work with college friends is priceless. :3. In the future, I hope my other friends will join to my adventure. 

Okay, the last is about my journey at my church. I have been given a lot of responsibilities and I will do my best to finish it. I think, one of the most difficult jobs is to change people. To mentor them, show them care, and many more is hard than programming. Nevertheless, I will not let God's given talent to me gone to waste. Next week? Let's go to Bali!

Patriotic Idealistic

Hi, now, I will tell you about some of my ideals throughout my life. This time, it's simple. I do not want to work at multinational company or foreign company. Never. I already knew that the career on that kind company is more stable, more salary, and more guarantee. Almost all of my family or friends told me to get a better job. Nevertheless, I still keep my idealism. I only want to work at relatively small company or start-ups and it is must be local.

There are obviously reasons behind my ideals. These are some of the most important. First, it is my destiny. I know I was born in this country with a reason. Moreover, I realize that this country still needs a lot of high quality engineer. Maybe I'm not a good engineer, but I'm striving to reach it. I know that my calling lies in this country. I have a vision that one day, Indonesia people is well educated and they must know that this country is insanely beautiful.

Second, I am a person with great curiosity. I always want to try a new things or technology. I always want change. Corporate does not provide me this way. They are very steady and stable. They do not want any change on their system before it is necessary. I want change every time because I know everything can better. There are no such perfect things. If something can be improved, why not? Working at start-ups give us room to accelerate change, at least better than at the corporate.

Third. It was very nice and humbling moment to see the small company turns into a big one. The process itself is very exciting. Little by little, the company grows and when you know that you're a part of it, it is priceless. Try it!

All by Myself

If you want to do something, do it by yourself at the first time. That's the lesson I've learnt nowadays. Waiting for other people to do the job means the job will never be finished. I had a mind that full of willingness to change for the sake of betterment. I knew everything can be upgraded. There are no such like perfect thing or environment. When people do not understand this principle, they will become stagnant.

Unfortunately, most people still lying in their comfort zone. It is hard for me to find a suitable companion that has the willingness to change. So few people are wanting to have changes in their life. Therefore, it is so hard to make a change though. I have to convince a lot of people, think a lot about the concept, work harder, getting up faster, sacrifice my holiday, maintain integrity standard, and many more. Although it was hard, but I won't be intimidated, because it's my calling. I cannot live without change for betterment. 

So, when I want to do something new, it is quite hard because I'm all alone that do the start. Sometimes, it is very nice if we have friends that support or maybe working together to make changes. I'm pretty sure this is the risk I have to take. I have to keep moving forward and make little change every day. So that, I could live my life to the fullest.