Now to my flash project (pun intended) I’m working on for the Software Engineering Course (SE in short.) Many a times in life, we feel that working continuously towards a goal helps get things done in a more orderly fashion. But heck, why would we be Software Engineers if we were to be so āgoal orientedā and āorderlyā?! We would be better off ordering around minions as Managers of Evil Inc, given our obviously superior intellect. (Scream āGeek!ā or āNo, Youāre Wrongā and point at me, but deep down, really deep down, you know Iām right.)
So, hereās what happened:
Shortly after 2 PM yesterday (20/04/10), we innocent denizens of MNNIT were caught unawares by a mail that seemed to be the workings of the Devil himself. He sought audience on 24, with demands quite astounding to comprehend. But little did we know at that time, that he was indeed serious about the matter. (Ok, it wasnāt the Devil. And he was not making incomprehensible demands.) He was our SE course coordinator, and wanted us to give Presentations on the projects weād been seemingly working on for the better half of the semester. But there was a catch. In his words: āall must bring their Lab assignment files and spiral binding of their project in the format that is being attached with this mail. If they donāt do so, then zero marks are given against the software engineering lab weightageā. That seemed rather harsh. 3 days. 1 Project. 1 SRS Documentation. 1 Practical Record. Seemed like a joke. And it was. An epic move played on us.
The day went as usual. People relaxed after a while. Things returned to normal. A calm before a hurricane. Luckily, I got a drift of things to come. And Iām thankful for that. Right after AI (Artificial Intelligence) Lecture, I came to my room and started to chart out a strategy-cum-battle plan. It had to be a blitzkrieg. Hitler had been good at it. Now it was my turn to prove it to him, that I was superior. I feared the thought that brought about his end could well spell trouble for me. But it looks like it hasnāt. Not yet anyway.
After having a quick meal at the mess (yes, it took some 6 hrs for the things penetrate), I started working on the database structures and a way to make their interaction with Flash (hail Adobe.) I was tired, really. Waking up early every day is quite hard. I started feeling sleepy. I battled on, draining my energies to the last bit. But I failed. (In short, I designed the structures and fell asleep.)
If you guys are still reading, Iāve come to the finest part of the post. Itās the part where I prove what Iāve written in the first paragraph. Unlike an organised guy, I had ignored the project all along. Feeble attempts to work on it were dropped due to lack of time. Met with a submission deadline, I got on to the adrenaline wave and got right to it. I started on the project right after lunch, or thatās what I remember. Since then, itās been a quick and steady progress on and on. And itās been the kinda shit that would make naĆÆve bystanders (read: computer illiterates) get the cross and pray like theyāve seen Satan. (You won’t get that line if you haven’t seen me work.) David Howrath (the pioneer of multi-programming) would hang himself in shame. (Well, to be honest, I was pushing my XPS to its limits, but by no means outperforming it). But I was doing a hell lot at once. I had medicine, made coffee, made glucose water, watched HIMYM, was coding, playing Spider Solitaire, browsing, chatting, and doing about a dozen other things (Priority based Round Robin rocks.) And to top it all, I managed to do it all so efficiently, I got some time off for the blog š
And yes, a screenie is well deserved here. (Note not just the taskbar, but also the number of tabs in Chrome)
Seems like I was meant to be a coder all along. Definitely not my choice though. I love programming. To what extent, I’ve realized now. It was awesome to crunch through code, obstacle after another. Finally go all the user interaction with the database working. Got to work on advanced GUI transformation and more. Its going to be a long week.
But shit. I suddenly realize, Iām going behind schedule! I’ve got just some 2 hrs more to finish a major part of the project. I wonāt make it will I? Later.
