I just bought my dream car !! Woohoo !!!

Lehman brothers files for bankruptcy

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a82CD7OMEtWM&refer=home

One of the largest investment banks in the US, Lehmen Brothers Holdings Inc filed for bankruptcy today. This spells bad news for the stock markets around the world, as many of these financial giants are finding it hard to cope with this years credit crunch. The other to succumb already are Bear Stearns and Merril Lynch.

Merrin Lynch however is expected to be bought over by BOA for something in the range of $50billion. Lehman however, were forced into liquidation as a result of Barclays Plc and BOA withdrawing their take over bid.

This is obviously going to affect other financial instituitions and individuals who relied on Lehman for financing. So expect prices to drop in the next few weeks!

Lehman Brothers was the biggest underwriter of mortage backed securities. 

Google Chrome has been launched !!

Google has adopted a neat way of explaining the concepts behind the design and construction of the browser. As always, keeping things simple and yet effective is the mantra. 

Interview questions (4)

1. Database schema design that caters to the handling of multiple real world relationships. 

2. In the event there was no Struts, how would I go about designing my own MVC model - to mimic a shopping cart application.

3. Provide a design that would search multiple search engines and provide a consolidated set of search results for a given keyword.

4. Review a piece of code.. what are the important things I should look for.

5. Write the getDepth() method of a tree. What are the approaches I can take... 

6. Write the substring method - the only available method is getChatAt(int)

7. Write a method that would reverse a string, a method that woudl reverse the words in a string

8. Write a method that would find the number of words in a given string. The same word should not be counted twice. 

9. Provide a design on how to implment the redo and undo features of paint. Provide alternate solutions and explain why they were alternate. 

Right technology.. right time...

Using the the most appropriate technology to solve a given problem is always the right thing to do. 

Unfortunately, in some instances, the technology chosen has nothing to do with whether it is the most suitable technology to solve the problem.  It is however, the result of the following,

- The most senior person in the team is most familiar with that technology

- Someone started on a POC to implement the solution on a particular technology, and the rest of the team simply continued on that path without stopping to question if it was the right way to go.

- Fear of open source -> and the inability to pay for a suitable commercial implementation -> results in creating an already existing, tried and tested framework. Talk about re-inventing the wheel.

- Lack of far thinking. Basically focusing on the here and now and not worried about future implications..

The right way to approach any problem like this is to stop and think a little. Just because everyone is jumping on the band wagon saying lets get this done, you shouldnt!

- First think, are we using the right tools to solve this problem.

- Evaluate all your options.. measure the pros vs the cons. This has always proven to be an invaluable exercise for almost any thing in software engineering.

- Based on the requirements and projections.. are you chosing the correct technology/solution.

- How about long term support... Would it be easier to hire engineers with this skill set?

- Try and avoid 're-inventing the wheel' as much as possible. Why waste time -> simple concentrate on solving business problems rather than problems that have already been solved by others. 

This will result in a more focused development envinronment that will ease your development process and provide higher quality results. 

My two cents...

Firefox 3

I just installed the RC for Firefox 3... and i love it. Here's what to look for,

1. Performance - The performance is simple awesome. The time it takes to load up my gmail is dramatically reduced... its now a matter of milliseconds.
2. Personalization
- adding of bookmarks is simplified to just a click of a star.
- the location bar now has type ahead. It shows you search matches with your bookmarks and history
3. Downloads - Resumable downloads !!

I'm sure there's more.. but this is just in the first 10 mins of use :)

Enjoy !!

The new Murali....?

Author Rob Steen talks about the newest member of the Sri Lankan team,

http://blogs.cricinfo.com/robslobs/archives/2008/04/the_new_murali.php