Gaurav Seth's WebLog : Etcetra

Back to the world of Blogging

GauravS — Wed, 09 May 2007 12:07:00 GMT

I know I have kept away from blogging for quite some time now. There were pleasant changes in life that I was adapting to and kept me busy for a while. Beyond that, I would say it was some procrastination which kept me away. Well, so here I am, kicking the procrastination off … !!!

So what have I been doing for the past one year?

Well on the work front, it’s mainly been work to ship the next version of the J# Redist called the Visual J# 2.0 Redistributable – Second Edition(SE). The 2.0-SE release would be shipped in three variants like the .NET Fx SKUs – one SKU for each platform type viz. x86, x64 or amd64 as some people call it and ia64. Apart from enabling users to execute their Visual J# applications natively on 64-bit platforms, the release also contains quite a few bug fixes as compared to the previous release. We are on track to release the product in the second quarter of calendar year 2007 as published on the Visual J# landing page on MSDN.

Three years at Microsoft India Development Centre

GauravS — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 12:51:00 GMT

It seems that it was very recent when I joined Microsoft’s India Development Centre at Hyderabad. But time has flown past. I have not realized how quickly these three years have passed by.

I still remember the first day when I walked in to MS – it was not my first day to work but a day to get interviewed by a select group of people. To be honest I had not come to seriously pursue a career with this firm, but I had come thinking that let me go and see what the buzz about Microsoft in India is all about. Adding to this was my past experience of 3 yrs, where-in I was working in a telecom domain, developing stuff for radio networks. I had imagined that a change to MS was going to be a complete misfit. As the interviews progressed, I was amazed at the strange culture I was experiencing here. If one interviewer asked me questions while lying down on the floor and relaxing, the other made me design a restaurant. Though it was a long day spanning 5 odd interviews, I could sense that I am in for a roll. Times were changing. There was an AWE factor which had hit me!!!

After accepting the job offer, first day at work and I was surprised yet again to be in such an office. During the interview day, a few of my college batch-mates working here had shown me the office facilities. Apart from others, they had claimed that the office had a small library which gets converted to a TV room at times. Well they never told me that the entire office lives here at times, and that too for days (In the cricket season ofcourseJ). Everyone surely lived there for a couple of weeks when I joined as the World Cup was going on. I being a newbie was not able to make out if I too was welcome in the new found living room. But now, I can say, everyone’s invited. I could have only imagined offices with so much freedom but this was an experience. And thus began the journey.

With a human tendency to resist change change, the initial few months were a little harrowing – new place, new work, no known faces around and all that. But in a matter of few months the change aspect had gone. I had started feeling at home in this new culture. And there was no looking back.

During my three years I have been associated with one of the oldest teams at Microsoft IDC – the Java Migration team, which is a part of the IDC’s Developer Tools Group. I have helped our team ship different projects working in different capacities (test, dev and PM) – J# Browser Controls (v1 and v1.1b), Java Language Conversion Assistant (Decaf and Broca) and the J# language (Whidbey and Orcas). These have been part of or add-on to the Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005 products.

Apart from work, the best part that I have liked about this organization is its people. Yes, they indeed are some of the best brains in the world to work with. Not only the brain, but even the ability of taking things in their stride stands out. People here not only work, but contribute to the various areas of social needs, right from helping the needy to what’s cooking in the cafeteria. Fun, frolic and party is never missing while you are here.

From being around the 150^th employee joining MS India to strength of 1200+ now, from the good old Cyber Towers office to the Microsoft Campus with world class amenities the journey so far has surely been a great experience for me.

(Though I completed 3 years on 10^th Mar,’06 I am posting this a little late as I was OOF)

Microsoft’s IDC Developer Tools Group celebrates Whidbey Launch

GauravS — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 16:50:00 GMT

Here is an article that was published in the IDC Samachaar, the monthly newsletter of Microsoft’s India Development Center regarding the IDC Developer Tools Contribution to the product.

Here Comes Whidbey

The world of software development is poised to take a big leap ahead. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 a.k.a. Whidbey had its worldwide release on Nov 7, 2005. This is one of the most significant releases in the history of the Developer Division and the Dev Tools team at IDC has played a major role in realizing this milestone.

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, here is an excerpt from Soma's blogs about what users can expect from Whidbey - “… Visual Studio 2005 enables” what I call “personalized productivity”. Visual Studio 2005 offers a host of productivity improvements that will ease the development of Windows, Web, Office, and mobile solutions while reaching out to a wider variety of roles and skill-sets. The Visual Studio Express Editions, for example, will enable hobbyists, enthusiasts, and students to learn how to program and code for fun. In addition, Visual Studio Team System expands the Visual Studio product line with software lifecycle tools that enable teams to communicate and collaborate more effectively throughout the software development process…”.

In terms of accomplishments achieved by the IDC Dev Tools, the Visual J# team was a loner at IDC while starting the Whidbey journey. And by the time we ship, we now own and execute many more exciting products at the Dev Tools Group:

• Java Language Conversion Assistant (JLCA) tool was completely transitioned to IDC. With this, the J# and JLCA teams combined hands to form the Java Migration Team - one team to help Java customers gain from the synergy created and migrate more efficiently to .NET Framework starting with Visual Studio 2005.

• Visual Studio for Team System's (VSTS) Build Automation and Converter Components project started at IDC. Though we were late to catch onto the Whidbey train, the Burton team at IDC has left no leaves unturned and made sure that we helped ship a quality Visual Studio Team Foundation Server's (TFS) Beta3 in time. We look ahead to the TFS release in early 2006.

• Mobile Web Services (MWS) initiative was started at IDC and is independent of the Visual Studio release. The vision of the MWS initiative is to enable the delivery of new and prevalent commercial telecom services to the existing base of Internet connected Window's PCs.

• The latest addition to our family is the Visual Studio for Devices (VSD) product which recently completed transition to IDC - VSD aims to deliver the Visual Studio developer experience to develop applications for Pocket PC, Smartphone, and other Windows CE based devices and would ship as a part of Visual Studio 2005.

With a product cycle of around 38 months, the amount of effort that has gone in to ship Whidbey has been tremendous. With new additions to the product line up at Dev Tools, team members have done a commendable job of working in multiple groups, and have helped setting up the new project teams during this timeframe in different phases and roles. The product teams and the entire division is very excited to have reached this milestone.

Dev Tools Director, Paramesh Vaidyanathan says “It's been 3 long years and I cannot express in words how proud I am of our team work. It's been a truly amazing journey”.

Whidbey Shipped … Bring on "Orcas"

Monsoon Cricket Hungama begins at IDC

GauravS — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 08:42:00 GMT

When Microsoft's India Development Centre moved to a new campus in Jan 2005, a lot of us took pride in having the plush green MCG (Microsoft Cricket Ground) as a part of the campus. We all knew, that one day we would all be in for a good game. The day was to be. One of those days was today.

Date - 14th July,2005

Event - Monsoon Cricket Hungama

Venue - MCG, Microsoft Hyderabad Campus

Teams - DevTool Devils (DevTools group - my team) Vs 11 Ups (Infrastructure Services)

As is said, cricket is a very funny game. In a knockout tournament with 19 teams participating, ours was the second match to be played. The first match was a low scoring one with the side fielding first needing to chase a target of 20 runs to win from 12 overs.So we thought this is going to be a low scoring match as conditions did not seem to be favoring the batsmen. Boy, was I to be proved wrong.

We had everything in the match that one can expect. Won the toss and elected to bat. We were crawling at 25/0 at the end of 5 overs in a 12 over limited match. Ashwin and Pratap were doing a great job to sustain their wickets but all started feeling that the run rate was way behind the targetted one. Come the 6th over and Pratap let loose. He hit some splendid shots out of the ground. While trying to step up Ashwin paved way for Varun who then gave way for Sushant. Both Varun and Sushant made sure that apart from giving support to Pratap who was playing all the more better from the other end they kept rotating the strike. Sushant hit some fabulous Sixes (I presume around 6) towards the end to get us home with a score of 121/2 at the end of the stipulated 12 overs.

We were happy about the score that we had put up for the opponents to chase. Apart from the batsmen the credit also goes to all the DevTools team members who were down there shouting slogans like "Jitega bhai Jitega - DevTools Jitega" (DevTools shall win) and cheering up the batsmen.

After a break of 15mins the 11 Ups came out to bat. DevTools was riding high on confidence. The left-right combination that came in to bat started posing a few problems for our bowlers. We had already given 30+ runs in the first 3 overs and the match looked to be equally poised, or rather more in favor of the 11 Ups. Thier openenrs were doing a good job to keep up the scoring rate.An intresting stage was set till the 6th over, when the match looked equally poised. But at that point the DevTool Devils clutched them hard. Bowlers bowled some tight full length overs. Fielders did a good job of making sure we restrict them and not let them steal away singles. By the 7th over when their first wicket fell, thanks to a splendid catch by Sunny at long-on, the needed run rate had increased tremendously. Beyond that it was just a formality as it's always difficult to keep up with the ever increasing run rates. The 11 Ups ended with 97/4 in the stipulated 12 overs with the DevDiv devils not letting a single Four being hit. There is no one who can stop the Sixers ofcourse :)

Pratap was adjudged the man of the match. We were a contended team at the end of the day.

Keep it up everybody. Its splendid to be a part of the DevTools family at IDC. Lets rock in the next match too. [:D]