Finally, e.COM 2007 is now done (since last week, actually). Generally, from the e.COM System point of view, it was done quite successfully. All of the modules worked as intended, except for some simple bugs which could’ve been avoided if I tested them thoroughly. Really sorry for those who are experiencing problems with the system. While the bugs had been fixed quickly, I know it’s been serious problems for some of you. And now, the e.COM 2007 report for IT division is done, so that’s all about e.COM 2007 for me (except for the closing dinner on September 22nd). Thank you so much for all of the committees, it’s been a hard work and it’s been a wonderful time working with all of you.

Sometimes after the end of e.COM 2007, however, I have had two bad news. The first one is I have not advanced to the Round 2 of TopCoder Collegiate Challenge (TCCC) Algorithm competition. The second one is that I also have not advanced to the Round 3 of TCCC Marathon match competition. Those news means that I will not be in Orlando, Florida next month for the onsite finals T_T. Probably I should try again next time, and I know I will.

Right now, my fifth semester of study in BiNus International have started. Although it’s been just a week, I noticed that there may be some hard work to be done this semester, especially for the "Software Engineering" course. The course includes a real project (software development) to be done for a real client (or at least, one of the lecturer want it that way). I’m quite doubtful that the new program will be successful though. Just wait and see…

Oh yes, there was a surprise from my friends on my birthday (6th of September). I was really happy and would like to thank you all, for being my friends. ^_^ I’m now twenty years old, single, lonely, and still don’t know what will happen in the future, so wish me luck!!

In contrast to the not-so-clear intention of the Software Engineering course, I have just looked into the TopCoder Component Development competition, which looks quite interesting. Basically it’s a competition where I have to do something like the project in the Software Engineering course, but with a very clear design document explaining what to do. This is much more worthy to be pursued, I guess. The components posted are in Java or .NET, where a complete UML design is available and all we do is just to code it as specified. Being more complicated than the Algorithm competition, this kind of competition offers about USD 500 to USD 1000 prize per project for the best submission, and half of that amount for the second-best submission. Judging that there are usually less-than-half-a-dozen competitor for a specific project, the chance to frequently win the prize is very high for me once I learned how to do it correctly. Probably I should start competing in Development, and I should start soon.

Another thing is about my files organization. Currently I am struggling (again) to organize my files (some tens of thousands of them). Having a PHP Gallery2 and a new hosting provider (which provides some 200gigs of space in their server for me) somehow simplifies the organization of photos, but not other files. I guess this time I have to focus on organizing the files (all of them), otherwise it will continuously affect my productivity.

On the top of all of these, I am now interested in learning about "Ruby on Rails". Previously I looked on either Ruby or Phyton, but it turns out that Ruby is much better documented and is simpler to be used. Therefore, I think I am going to use Ruby to create my own personal database web applications (such as for tracking my belongings, my CD collections, books, contacts, etc.). Hopefully it worked well, so that I can one day organize all of my things neatly (which, based on experience, greatly enhance my productivity).

So, thats the end of a chapter about e.COM, and a beginning of a new chapter focused on learning and software development. I really hope it’ll be useful in the future, what do you think?

-Andrian Kurniady

"Learning", I have been thinking about this topic lately. There are several things I felt about learning, from my point of view as a Computer Science student as well as an independent person. Lately, I am feeling like, I am not learning fast enough. There seems to be so many topics to be learned (mostly are not about the course lessons though, they are about the Algorithms). Sometimes, while learning, I realized that out of these many topics (most are some subtle algorithms for solving some problems), there seem that many person out there (especially competition enthusiasts) have mastered much more than I do. Thanks to the "flat world", this is becoming a problem, because most competitions I join are international, and mostly online as well. Somehow, I feel like I have to accelerate my learning, otherwise I will never catch up with the champions.

However, learning requires two things : materials, time, and motivation. Acquiring the text materials is no more difficult thanks to the internet, and motivation is certainly not a problem for me. However, time is a problem. I realized that I can’t learn much while I’m multitasking (which, means, having the long term projects, especially big software projects while learning). Having these extra burden while learning significantly distracted my concentration on a single topic, which means, wasting my time when learning things.

These works (project - especially e.COM System) however, can not be abandoned anyway. Although I don’t learn much doing projects, I have committed to do it. Therefore, I think the best solution is to have the projects done as soon as possible, and for the future, I should limit the number of tasks to do at one time. I think it is about at most one project at a time in the future, which should not be a big project, one week of work at most. For this time, I aim to finish the whole e.COM System by the end of July. After that, I will focus on learning algorithm, in preparation for the ACM ICPC Regionals 2007. Last time, I did not prepare enough to achieve the top positions. This time, there should be no more compromise, as this will be my last chance of joining the ACM ICPC. The world is changing, the competitors are growing, and I’m afraid that if I don’t learn fast enough, I will never reach the top.

In the past, I focused more on software development. Later on, I realized that the world of software development does not mean much : it is something that an average programmer can learn easily. Software development is more about work : if you work, you’ll be able to do it. However, algorithms and competitions are different. Here, learning means something, and time is important as well. In a simpler way : if I practice too much software development now (J2EE or web development, for example), the skills I get will be useless in a few years to come. It is different with algorithms, which is growing, rather than changing. Once I master all of the common algorithms, improving should require less work because new algorithms don’t come up that often. Most algorithms in use today basically comes from 60s, 70s, 80s, but so few comes from 90s or the last few years. Therefore, it’s less likely to become obsolete anytime soon. Compare with web development, where a handful new technologies comes out every month. Without understanding these changes, any programmer will most likely either end up jobless in ten or twenty years, or otherwise work as a low level programmer for the entire career.

The world of computer science is growing, while software development is changing. Most programmers are software developers instead of scientists. Learning software development is much easier than learning the science, but software development require a more of constant learning due to its changing nature. Learning is the only way for a programmer to survive the future, and that’s why I don’t want to be a programmer for my entire career, it’s not a stable job. What do you think?

-Andrian Kurniady

Its now the second week of the compact semester. More or less, I’m now able to enjoy my life again, not extremely busy, but at least I still have things to do. I found out that having a complete holiday (i.e. sleeping >10hours a day) is not good for health anyway. Sleeping that long, I often wake up with a headache. @_@ Sleeping 7 to 8 hours are more healthy in my opinion.

I am starting to realize how nice it is to have a balanced life. I think that in the past, I spent too much time having fun while working on something, which makes the works take a lot more time than needed. That means, less time to really have some fun. Starting from now on, I will focus on working at daytime from Monday to Friday. Other than that, it is the time to have fun, at least doing something that I really like.

The e.COM System development, however, was not quite running as planned. The reason is just like explained in the book "The Mythical Man-Month". In short, additional number of developers does not add any benefit to the project. In practice, having too many developers can also be a burden, because there will be the need of training, etc. before they can perform work. That is sometimes usually cost more time than having one person who do all the work. On e.COM System, however, I have to transfer the knowledge about the maintenance and development of the system to the next generation, because I will not handle the system development anymore after this time. e.COM 2007 will be the last e.COM to have its system maintained by me. Thus, I need to balance the work, I should try to do part of the development on my own, but at least I have to explain how it works to Binusian 2010s who are part of the team. Fortunately, this time, my experience and understanding about the system and its underlying technology has gone much much better than last year. For the time being, I will distribute the materials and have the others understands how to deploy and test it at least. I will do the modifications, because these will need too much extra effort to be taught.

For the courses in the Compact Semester, I guess there are not much to worry about. I’m quite sure that I will pass Macroeconomics with a good score overall, if I spend some time studying about it carefully (which does not mean listening to the lectures, because honestly I think it is wasting too much time). Numerical methods are fine, because I am already familiar with numeric calculations for the competitions. And for Character Building IV, definitely no worries at all.

So, enjoy the Compact Semester… (or holiday for some of you). Whatever the work is, don’t forget to have fun ^_^

-Andrian Kurniady

The past week have been very tiring, but very exciting as well. The competition was a great success for me. Thanks for everyone’s support for that ^_^. It was tough, but I finally did it. Inspired by Stephanie FA, since that event, I decide to use "lalala" as the method name for every recursive function I made for competitions in the future, except when it is impossible. That was how I solved one of the hardest problem in the competition, and I think it is good for the future as well…

After the competition, things get easier… The exams was fine, although I study only one day before the exam… It seems that the exams was not as hard as what I have anticipated, so now is the time for me to pray for the best results (which, based on experience, may come in a few weeks or few months…). Luckily the exams ended (for me) on Wednesday, so that I have a few days to rest before the beginning of the compact semester… However, the holiday was not perfect. An Object Technology course assignment suddenly came up and was due Saturday. It took some work to complete, but I’m glad that I did it well… so, for now, no more assignment…

Having less worried, I was able to do a lot more things. I met an friend from high school who are back from China for a holiday. Together we tried a yoga class in Fitness First in Plaza Semanggi. It was interesting, but very exhausting as well (probably it wasn’t, it’s just me who are still tired).

As for the compact semester, the schedule is quite nice. I’m off on Monday and Friday, but I guess another ACM ICPC training is already in place for Saturday. So, although I will not be as busy as in the previous few months, there will be still some work to do… And yes, another e.COM System… last year it was tough, because it was my first time handling e.COM System as well as the technologies used in there. My team was great last year, they helped a lot in getting the system done. This year, I think I am going to have another great team, so things should be done more easily this time. Anyway, I will not start working until Tuesday, I still want these free days to be fun and relaxing…

Happy holiday, have fun! ^_^

-Andrian Kurniady

Its Friday, its June 15, and you guess!! Tomorrow is the Final round of INC 2007. Its my first time to compete in this new team (Me, Dennis, Peter), and the competition will be tough (think of NoMoreAC team who have been together for a while). I am used to compete with the YoiAC team (Me, Felix, Andoko), but sadly the team have to broke up because Felix graduated and move to NUS.

I’m quite confident though, and the only thing I fear of is that I may make some bugs tomorrow and mess the whole thing. I have made countless of silly bugs, and although I learned a lot from those bugs I made and fixed, new bugs still comes up very often in my coding. All I do today is have a really good rest and hope for the best tomorrow, as I made more bugs when I’m sleepy or tired. I really need to be in my best condition tomorrow, it’s my only chance to win.

I’ve done a lot of things in preparation though. I finished the important parts of a couple of books in the last week. The first is "The Practice of Programming". I recommend this book to ALL computer science students, it really shows you how to do good coding. It really matches with my experience, but still, I learn a lot out of it. The second book is "C++ Standard Library Practical Tips", which shows how to use the C++ STL and other standard library (such as <string> and streams) effectively. Some tips in it allows coding of common procedures as short as a single line (such as reading input or printing output). These procedures needs at least 3-4 lines without these tips. Both are great books, and I bought both in Bangalore, India during my last trip.

The last preparation I do is now compiling and printing out my Team notebook. This time, it will be based on our YoiAC World Final 2007’s team notebook. I added a page containing extra tricks I learned recently, especially the C++ Standard Library functions that I think will be useful. This notebook contains common algorithms, cheatsheets of mathematical formulas, and some templates. Although in my experience we don’t use much of the notebook during competition, I prepare my best just in case I need it (this time I don’t have Felix in the team who seems to remember everything).

All set and ready, its now time to pray and try my best. I must remember to take the chocolates before tomorrow’s competition, drink enough, and eat enough during the exhausting 5-hour competition. Wish me luck !!! and also, good luck for all of the teams who will compete tomorrow.

-Andrian Kurniady

As you may have known already from my previous blog posts, the past one month has been a very very busy month for me, loads of projects, events, etc. that have virtually taken most of my time everyday. I haven’t got much time to relax, rest, or even play any games… But things have changed since last Wednesday. It was the deadline for all of my projects (except Computer Graphics which have been submitted a week before). Since two or three days before that, I have slept as little as only five to six hours a night. I basically do the projects until late night, and wake up early in the next morning to attend classes. As I am someone who normally sleep seven to eight hours a day, these days had been really exhausting for me. Some classmates have even skipped the night sleep altogether for the last day, rushing the projects into completion. But all of us really feels relieved, at least everything was over and we now have at least a bit more time to rest and relax…

In terms of result, I must say that I am quite satisfied. Although the projects did not complete as good as what I am capable of making, at least the deliverable and scores fulfilled my expectation based on the amount of work I put on them. It is just right at the level where extra efforts or features does not add up to the score anymore. Congratulations for all friends who have already finished their projects as well, I know some of you worked real hard to achieve that ^_^

There are many works coming though, as exams are coming this very next week, and the ACM ICPC Indonesia National Contest (ACM INC) is going to start with an online preliminary round tomorrow. Somehow I feel that for this time, the exams are going to be much more difficult than the mid exam or any of the previous exams. There are just so much thing as theories, syntax, etc. to memorize, and I am not sure whether I can memorize all of them. Anyway, I’ll try my best and we’ll see what will happen. Regarding the ACM INC programming contest, I guess this time I have to work real hard during the competition days. I expect this time it’ll be much more challenging than the previous BNPC-CS. I still have to complete parts of my skill that haven’t been practiced much such as network flow and A*. I guess a week should be enough to at least try some of those algorithms, no need to memorize since I can just add them to the team notebook. There are also the e.COM System project coming, and to be honest I haven’t got any idea on how to distribute the work to my team members… This time I really need some advices from expert Java programmer on how to split the work of Java web application projects…

Besides work, I guess other things have also got better than before. I think I should just let go those things that does not really deserve to be chased for, and focus on getting more important things done. I guess I have to reorganize my financial matters, as I haven’t done much of it for several months. Another things that deserve more attention is my room. I bought a lot of books and items that mostly haven’t been organized well in my room, taking up spaces that they shouldn’t. The same thing goes to the computer file storage. Pictures, documents, musics, have been scattered unorganized in the system. If these files are not organized soon, I sense some disaster coming when some hard drives fail.

Speaking about digital storage, I guess many of us don’t really think about the security and reliability of our storage media. Some people just store their files in whatever harddisk they have and can’t do anything when the disk is broken. For avoiding this kind of things, I have used RAID-mirroring for the disks in my file server for some years already, and although there hasn’t been any failing disks yet, I feel a little bit less worried simply by doing that kind of mirroring. I guess for computer science students, especially those using laptops, data backup should have better priority. It’s certainly a disaster to lose the nearly-completed projects, if it happens.

I guess there are still much to say, but before this blog got too long, I should stop here and continue next time. Please feel free to leave any comments you may have, I’ll really appreciate those…

-Andrian Kurniady

I’m back… setelah "libur" selama beberapa hari, akhirnya gw balik ke Indo lagi, balik ke Jakarta lagi, balik ke rumah lagi… Dan itu artinya, balik ke PROJECTS lagi… hahaha…

Well, lima hari yang baru lewat ini lumayan sukses menghilangkan bosan gw ngerjain projects (yang udah berminggu2 dan masih akan berlangsung paling gak seminggu lagi). Kunjungan ke India kali ini lumayan lebih menyenangkan daripada yang dulu, jadi gw coba ceritain dalam blog kali ini…

Perjalanan yang sepenuhnya disponsori Google ini dimulai dari Jakarta (ini sih udah jelas.. :P), naik SQ ke Singapore hari Rabu sore, lanjut dengan SQ lagi ke Bangalore (4 jam). Sampai ke Bangalore jam 10, dan sejak di airport mulai merasakan kesan India… mulai dari antrian imigrasi yang lamaa dan gak jelas (sama aja kayak di Indo, ngantri imigrasi bisa setengah jam lebih), disusul dengan bagasi yang baru keluar sekitar satu setengah jam setelah pesawat mendarat… (untungnya sampai dengan selamat sih). Oh iya sebelum lupa, yang berangkat dari Jakarta ada 3 orang, yaitu gw, Mr. Raymond (dosen Binus Inter), sama Andoko Chandra (Binus Reguler). Yang berangkat dari Singapur ada 3 orang : Felix Halim, Bramandia, Ainun (semua orang Indo).

Keluar dari arrival hall, nemu petugas dari hotel "The Chancery Pavilion" yang uda menunggu. Jalan beberapa langkah menuju tempat menunggu mobil, jelas sekali mulai terlihat style traffic India : macet, klakson di mana2, dan mobil2 saling nyerobot. Kalo compare sama di Jakarta, mungkin bisa dibayangin kalo (hampir) semua pengemudi di sana menyetir dengan gaya koboi seperti supir taksi / angkot di sini (kebayang donk gimana semrawutnya).

Tahun 2003 gw pernah ke New Delhi dan lumayan mengecewakan… tapi kali ini gw berkunjung ke Bangalore dan agaknya kota yang satu ini jauh lebih baik. Hotel yang kita tempatin ini bintang 5 (kayaknya sih), dan sempet liat bahwa rate kamar yang kita tempatin (double deluxe) itu 230USD. Jelas bener bahwa Google memang niat banget mo sponsorin kita (mereka ngundang semua team yang ke Tokyo - ACM ICPC World Final untuk berkunjung ke kantor Google terdekat). Tiket pesawat SQnya pulang pergi aja udah 1900 USD… Denger2 sih hotel yang ini masih baru (baru 1.5 tahun), makanya masih bagus layaknya hotel - hotel di Jakarta… Kamarnya lumayan bagus, standar hotel berbintang lah. Sampai di kamar gw langsung tidur… karena uda sakit kepala (kurang minum sepanjang perjalanan kayaknya).

Keesokan harinya bangun agak siang, kira - kira jam 8.30 waktu India (GMT+5.5), mandi, sarapan, lalu mulai berpetualang. Karena rombongan yang dari Singapur belum tiba, kita ber-3 yang udah nyampe duluan memutuskan untuk nyewa taksi hotel seharga 1500 rupee untuk 4 jam keliling kota, ditambah overtime 3 jam jadi sekitar 1800an rupee. Satu rupee harganya 230 rupiah dengan rate money changer di hotel.

Pas itu sempet mengunjungi gedung Parlemen (dan gedung High Court di seberangnya). Lumayan bagus gedungnya, arsitektur Eropa gitu deh… dan kayaknya gedung parlemen itu adalah gedung terbagus di Bangalore. Sempat juga mengunjungi Bangalore Palace dan kesan yang gw dapet adalah istananya sangat gak terawat.. walopun interiornya barang mahal, semuanya udah agak rapuh, berdebu, ato rusak… sempet liat juga raja yang nempatin istana itu, berhubung beliau lagi mau keluar istana, jadi ngeliat waktu dia masuk ke mobil (Mercedes baru, entah seri apa). Jujur aja agak mengecewakan untuk ukuran sebuah palace sih… Tempat wisata terakhir yang sempet dikunjungi adalah yang namanya "Botanical Garden".. taman kayak kebon raya gitu tapi jauh lebih kecil dan gak gitu rimbun pohon - pohonnya.

Selain tempat wisata, driver yang ngaterin kita juga bawa kita ke beberapa toko. Kita sempat datengin dua toko souvenir, yang rupanya jual karpet, baju, pajangan, dan perhiasan (standar toko souvenir di sana kayaknya, barangnya mirip2). Yang pertama namanya CIE, di situ gw sempet beli dua buah pendant dari batu topaz biru (biru laut gitu, bagus sih menurut gw). Bayar dengan Visa Electron gw, ternyata sama aja kayak dipakai belanja di Indo. Di toko yang kedua, gak beli apa2 karena barangnya sama aja sama toko pertama, dan gw juga uda pernah ke India jadi gak tertarik beli hiasan marmer.

Toko terakhir yang dikunjungi hari pertama itu adalah sebuah toko buku. Toko buku ini konon katanya yang paling gede di Bangalore, namanya Ganggaram’s Book Bureau. Buku - buku di sini (terutama komputer) lengkap dan banyak buku baru. Yang menarik adalah buku - bukunya kebanyakan terbitan khusus untuk India yang harganya lumayan miring (Low Price Edition). Karena berencana hari sabtunya mau datang lagi ke toko ini, jadi kita gak beli apa2 dulu. Abis itu balik ke hotel, istirahat sebentar dan siap2 ke acara dinner dari Google.

Toko - toko di India ini hampir semua (kecuali toko buku) menganut sistem penjualan "push" mode. Jadi yang jaga toko bener2 agresif nawar2in barang2nya, setengah maksa gitu deh… Begitu beli satu, langsung ditawarin barang lain, begitu seterusnya… Harus bener2 hati2 kalo gak mau habis duit banyak… dan menurut gw barang India buatannya gak gitu rapi, jadi harus teliti memilih.

Sempet juga ada kejadian lucu, hotelnya mati lampu selama kira - kira 15 menitan (entah kenapa)… jadi telat turun untuk menghadiri dinner (yang ternyata banyak yang belum hadir juga..). Di situ ketemu team2 lain dari India, Bangladesh, dan beberapa orang google. Acaranya ternyata cuma ngobrol2 dan makan2, ada juga disediain puzzle 500 piece di meja - meja buat yang iseng… (team dari Indonesia sukses nyelesein puzzle keesokan harinya, gambarnya menara Eiffel) haha…

Acara untuk hari Jumat adalah kunjungan ke kantor Google, dilanjutkan makan siang di sebuah restoran namanya Samarkhan. (Kunjungan ke kantor Google gak bisa diceritain, soalnya under Non-Disclosure Agreement hehehe…). Restoran ini menyajikan makanan "Afghani", menurut seorang Googler (karyawan Google) yang makan semeja dengan kita. Makanannya dengan gaya "tandoori", intinya sih grill gitu dengan bumbu India… Kita disajikan macamnya grilled chicked, lamb, dessert khas India… minumnya pakai cawan dari kuningan (entah sih, pokoknya logam kuning gitu, gak mungkin emas lah).

Setelah itu dilanjutkan acara main paintball dengan para Googler juga… (gak gitu exciting sih…). Acara terakhir bersama Googler adalah dinner di sebuah resto kecil (gak ada orang lain kayaknya), yang menyajikan makanan entah makanan mana, rasanya aneh2 tapi ada beberapa menu yang enak juga…

Hari terakhir di India diisi dengan berburu buku di toko - toko buku… Ada 3 toko buku yang kita kunjungi, Crosswords, Blossoms, sama Ganggarams. Gw beli 5 buku dengan total harga gak lebih dari 400an ribu rupiah, padahal bukunya buku2 berat yang di Indo harganya bisa 200rb`an satuannya…

Malemnya balik lagi ke Airport, check-in`nya ternyata ngantrinya semrawut juga (jauh lebih semrawut dari Indo, ini kayak bandara di kota kecil yang dijadiin bandara internasional…). Lewat imigrasi, naik ke pesawatnya dan ternyata berangkatnya telat sekitar setengah jam…

Pesawat kita tiba di Changi sekitar jam 6 (Minggu pagi)… jalan2 di airport dulu sebentar untuk internetan, Andoko tuker dolar singapur, abis itu keluar dari airport sekitar jam 9. Tujuan pertama, naik MRT ke Orchard road… gw makan sebentar di McD, lalu kita ke Kinokuniya. Buku yang dicari Andoko (Support Vector Machine, AI gitu deh) ternyata ada di sana tapi harganya gila, 70-170 EUR haha… gak jadi beli deh…

Siangnya kita ketemu dengan temennya Andoko bernama Eka (ex Binusian yang sekarang kerja di Sing), dan dibawa jalan2 ke Chinatown (tempat souvenir gitu), abis itu ke Suntec city, liat pameran komputer. Pamerannya rame banget, karena udah hari terakhir. Saking ramenya sampe berdesak2an di semua tempat di dalam hall pameran… Barang - barang di sini harganya hampir sama dengan di Indo, tapi jauh lebih lengkap. Laptopnya jauh lebih lengkap, dan produk terbaru yang baru keluar satu-dua minggu udah muncul di pameran (di Indo sih bisa berbulan2… kacau). Masih membawa backpack gw berisi kamera dan laptop yang hampir 10 kg beratnya, telapak kaki gw mulai pegal2, untungnya udah saatnya balik ke airport lagi. Di airport gak perlu check-in karena uda pegang boarding pass sampe ke Jakarta…

Naik flight SQ lagi, kita tiba di Jakarta jam 7 malam. Ngantri di Imigrasi makan waktu 1 jam… parah… sampe di luar bagasi udah keluar dan langsung dijemput pulang… akhirnya gw balik lagi ke rumah, bisa tidur tenang karena hari ini libur.

Setelah dicek, ternyata belanja pake kartu Visa electron jauh lebih menguntungkan daripada bawa dollar trus dituker jadi Rupee… rate pake kartu beli cuma 227 rupiah per rupee, sedangkan kalau tuker dollar kira2 kena 237 rupiah per rupee… Kayaknya lain kali gw keluar negeri, belanja pake kartu terus aja lah… Oh iya, ternyata tuker rupee ke rupiah jangan dilakukan di Singapore, karena ratenya jadi jelek banget, tinggal 197. Jauh lebih menguntungkan tuker rupee jadi dollar di India, trus dollar jadiin rupiah di Jakarta…

Thx buat yang udah baca cerita ini ^_^ apakah anda jadi ingin ke India? hehe…

-Kurniady

Thx buat semua yang udah baca blog post gw yang sebelumnya, terutama yang udah ninggalin comments. This one will be another long blog juga kayaknya… Well, it’s been a bit of controversy whether it is worth or not to do the projects perfectly… Kayaknya gw perlu revisi pernyataan gw hehe… In terms of marks, memang gak worthed banget… In terms of experience, gw yakin ada satu level limit di mana kalo projectnya dikerjain di atas limitnya udah gak worthed extra experience lagi… ^_^

Misalnya project CG, kalo mo buat 80% modeling satu lantai maka yang diperlukan code`nya adalah setengah kalinya kalo mau modeling 95%. (persen di sini adalah persen kedekatan relatif terhadap aslinya). Jelas kalau sampai 95% mungkin masih worthed, tapi kalo mo sampe 98%, 99%, bisa dibayangin kodingnya mo sepanjang apa dan seribet apa… Dan you won’t learn much out of it, karena kode yang bakal ditulis adalah kebanyakan berulang - ulang… Misal : gambar kubus 10x sama worthednya dengan gambar kubus 20x dari segi experience, yang penting kan udah bisa gambar kubus, tapi mungkin loe bakal butuh 100x gambar kubus untuk menjadikan project loe perfect. (ini cuma contoh, pada prakteknya ya gambar kubus kan tinggal panggil function… hahaha)

Well, gw menyadari kalo sejauh ini kebanyakan orang mengira coding gw untuk project CG koq aneh sendiri, rumit, complicated!, bukan bahasa manusia, or sejenisnya… Sebenernya gak begitu koq… Dalam programming gw selalu mementingkan elegance, kalo gw liat kode yang ada gak gitu masuk di akal maka gw bakal prefer buat sendiri. Mulai dari camera, object hierarchy, collision detection, terrain, semuanya gw coding sendiri akhirnya… Mungkin emang jalan pikiran gw agak aneh kali ya… tapi gw merasa dengan gw buat sendiri kayak begini, walopun gw spent a lot of time preparing for these frameworks, experience yang gw dapet jauh lebih banyak daripada kalo gw reuse coding orang (walopun gw bisa ngerti cara kerjanya).

Reuse coding kadang ada gunanya juga, tapi ada juga kelemahannya : kalo program loe jadi besar, maka integrating the program will be difficult. Sukur2 kalau codingnya semua berasal dari sumber yang sama dan compatible, kalo gak gimana..? Dengan buat project CG ini gw jadi tambah menyadari pentingnya design patterns dalam buat program, semuanya jadi jauh lebih gampang. Project CG ini dengan patterns yang menurut gw udah bagus aja masih perlu 6800an baris sampai dengan milestone 1, kalo misalnya gw gak buat frameworknya mungkin gw bakal expect codingannya lebih dari 10000 baris untuk mencapai hasil yang sama dan pastinya gw gak bakal sempet coding sebanyak itu. Itulah kegunaannya buat program dengan konsep top-down, jadi dipikirin dulu design programnya bukan sekedar nyambung2in per part yang dibuat terpisah. (mestinya yang kayak begini diajarin di kuliahan nih, mungkin nanti kali ya di course Software Engineering).

Well, deadline project CG jadinya Selasa depan, sedangkan gw belum prepare much for Milestone 2… Tapi at least lega juga karena WP diundur sampai Juni, karena gw yakin gak bakal mampu selesein WP dan CG seutuhnya minggu depan. So, untuk seminggu ini kayaknya gw bakal fokus ngerjain CG dulu, let’s do the best and see what’s the result… Buat temen2 yang senasib sama gw, semuanya selamat berjuang ya! Good luck! ^_^

Walopun beberapa hari ini gw agak kurang sehat, tapi at least gw udah merasa gak secapek minggu lalu. Saat - saat yang sekarang ini gw bener2 gak boleh sakit, otherwise banyak banget tugas yang bakal berantakan. Sekarang gw udah ada semangat lagi ngerjain projects, yang buat gw waktu yang tersedia jauh lebih sedikit dari seharusnya.

Minggu depan gw bakal ke India, diundang Google untuk mengunjungi kantor mereka di Bangalore, bersama team - team ACM ICPC dari South and South-East Asia yang waktu itu ikut World Final di Tokyo. Menurut pengalaman dari kunjungan gw ke India 4 tahun yang lalu (buat lomba), gw yakin kali ini 4 hari gw di sana bakal sangat melelahkan. Gw bakal berangkat Rabu tanggal 30, trus transit satu hari di Singapore tanggal 3 Juni sebelum balik ke Jakarta. Untungnya sih Jumat tanggal 1 Juni itu hari libur, dan gw belum memutuskan mau mengurus dispensasi ato gak… karena jatah absen gw masih banyak (rugi juga gak dipake ^_^).

Buat pxang dan semuanya yang khawatir gw bakal kabur dari tugas IT e.COM, jangan khawatir lah. Gw gak jadi internship di Google koq, karena katanya ngurus Visanya bakal telat kalo untuk tahun ini. Tapi e.COM IT project will be my last e.COM IT project, karena tahun depan gw mungkin udah gak sempet lagi. Gw udah dapet experiencenya, dan menurut gw bakal lebih bermanfaat kalo projectnya gw wariskan ke orang lain biar dia juga bisa belajar apa yang gw pelajari dari e.COM System ini.

Nah waktu balik, projects lanjut lagi… SAD masih 0%, WP baru 60%, kayaknya beberapa hari itu bakalan lembur lagi… (padahal lembur itu gak sehat… hikz hikz…).

Well, udah kepanjangan deh kayaknya gw nulisnya… intinya gw mo ngucapin selamat berjuang buat temen2 di CS, ato semuanya yang sekarang lagi berjuang mengerjakan projects… haha… Kuliahan aja udah kayak begini gw gak berani bayangin gimana kalo nanti udah kerja… Mungkin gw punya waktu lebih sedikit, lebih banyak yang perlu gw kerjain, tapi gw punya keyakinan semuanya bakal selesai dengan baik.

-Kurniady

Akhirnya selesai juga gw nulis cerita tentang Tokyo, walopun sebenernya udah telat banget karena udah lewat 2 bulan… tapi gw akhirnya berhasil memaksakan diri buat selesein semuanya. It’s better late than never ^_^

Belakangan ini kayaknya hidup gw mulai kacau… Kerjaan banyak yang gak selesai2, banyak yang males banget dikerjain, dan parahnya makin banyak kerjaan yang dateng.

Mulai dari project CG milestone 2, project WP, project SAD, dan yang terakhir project e.COM. Kadang2 gw rasanya capek banget, karena tiap hari gak pernah punya waktu luang, tapi kerjaan juga gak maju.

Mungkin yang kayak gini ya namanya stress hahaha… jadi tiap hari habisin waktu di depan laptop cuma browsing2, chatting2. Begitu mulai kerjain tugas, langsung rasa malas menyerang dan akibatnya setelah kerjain dikit langsung menyerah dan ditunda. Walopun deadline masih jauh, tapi udah kebayang bakal sesibuk apa nanti waktu udah dekat. Dan itu bukannya bikin gw jadi rajin, malah tambah stress dan males kerjain projectnya…

Belum lagi Laptop gw yang baru aja rusak dan nginep 2 minggu buat diservice, untung sekarang udah balik dan bisa dipake lagi. Selama 2 minggu terasa banget tugas banyak yang ditelantarkan, karena gw sendiri agak males kalo ngerjain pake PC (yang gak ada Windowsnya). Walopun akhirnya sempet memaksakan diri nyelesein sebagian project WP, tapi gw merasa kalo gw buang waktu banyak banget dengan mengerjakannya di PC. Entah kenapa kalo ngerjain sesuatu di PC, gw bakal spend kira - kira 2x waktu yang diperlukan kalo gw ngerjain di Laptop gw.. Mungkin gw blom biasa pake Linux aja kali ya…

Selain itu, terasa banget banyak waktu gw di dalem kelas (terutama kelas2 yang membosankan…) jadi gak produktif, yang biasanya gw kerjain sesuatu di laptop jadi gak bisa, dan ujung2nya cuma dengerin dosen baca slide. Semuanya jadi susah apalagi kalo harus presentasiin project gw, karena biasanya gw kerjain semuanya di laptop, presentasi juga pake laptop yang sama. Anyway, terima kasih banyak buat Stephanie F.A. yang udah setia minjemin laptop VAIOnya buat tempat deploy project gw dan juga buat gw buka dan kirim email dari kampus. It really means something to me ^_^

BTW sekarang laptop gw udah balik, udah gw upgrade RAMnya jadi 1.5gb, seharusnya semuanya jadi lebih mudah dan produktifitas gw balik lagi. Tapi kenyataannya gak sebagus itu. Entah kenapa gw hari ini rasanya cape sekali, walopun masih sukses ngerjain tugas WP dari Probo sama quiz lab CG yang nyusul. Udah install Netbeans di laptop, tapi rasanya males banget mo lanjutin project WP gw. Mungkin ada hubungannya sama koneksi Diginet yang lagi kaco juga, karena laptop yang kosong ini setiap kali gw mo install program harus download (kebiasaan buruk nih, abis diinstall installer langsung didelete biar gak nyampah, asumsi internet unlimited jadi bisa download lagi). Ujung2nya karena koneksinya gak bagus, pas gw start download ato mo browsing lambat banget dan putus2, akhirnya gw jadi males dan gw tutup semuanya. Sekarang aja nulis blog ini gw terpaksa pake koneksi backup, which is CBN dialup yang mahal dan pelan itu (duh kebiasaan pake broadband, jadi gini deh…)

Kalo dipikir2 memang sepertinya gw terlalu banyak kesibukan dalam setahun (ato lebih tepatnya, wasting too much time dengan mengerjakan tugas2 gw tidak dengan efisiensi maksimal). Kayaknya gw juga terlalu perfeksionis, gak bakal buat project asal jadi dan lolos, karena gw maunya perfect semua project gw. Tapi agaknya ini kurang menguntungkan. Project yang gw kerjain dengan agresif, buang banyak banget waktu, nilainya gak jauh beda dengan punya temen gw yang ngerjainnya normal dan seadanya. Entah penilaiannya yang ga bener ato gw yang terlalu perfeksionis, tapi menurut gw gak worthed extra time and effort yang gw keluarkan untuk membuat semuanya perfect. Tapi memang sih, dengan ngerjainnya kayak gitu, ada kepuasan tersendiri kalo gw presentasiin project gw. Bagaimana menurut anda?

Well, buat compact semester ini gw bakal ambil 3 courses, buat semester depan gw bakal ambil 6 courses, yang artinya gw bakal sibuk sepanjang tahun ini. Kayaknya udah lama juga gak ngerasain libur yang bener2 libur, libur yang gak perlu mikirin tugas apa2… Mungkin sekarang masih saatnya gw berjuang ya, mumpung masih ada kesempatan untuk maju dan berkembang, mungkin memang belum saatnya untuk bersantai… Gw masih memperjuangkan untuk lulus dari Binus dalam 3 tahun, dengan harapan itu bakal membukakan jalan gw buat lebih banyak pilihan ketika lulus.

Yah, memang gw sekarang lebih banyak memikirkan masa depan. Mau ke mana gw nanti pas lulus? Mungkin kalo dulu mikirnya simple, mau lulus dan buka usaha sendiri (software house), tapi sepanjang perjalanan kayaknya gak ada yang segampang itu. Kompetisi makin berat, dan ini dunia IT yang perkembangannya cepat sekali. Agaknya terlalu naif kalo berharap tinggal jalanin aja kuliah di Binus, trus lulus dan dapet kerja yang bagus karena hal itu pastinya cuma khayalan. Pengalaman menunjukkan skill yang akan gw pelajari dengan cara demikian gak bakal memberikan hidup yang makmur buat gw, gw harus belajar something more yang sebenernya jauh lebih penting. Buat temen2, gw cuma bisa bilang, dunia industri IT ini sekarang berat sekali kompetisinya. Kalo mau dapet kerjaan yang biasa - biasa saja mungkin gampang, tapi kalo mo cari kerja yang bener2 bagus dan punya masa depan, agaknya sulit kalo cuma berharap dari ijasah S1. Dunia IT ini beda sama kalo jadi dokter misalnya, di mana setelah lulus bisa praktek dan praktek terus seumur hidup dan hidup makmur. Di sini, teknologi baru datang setiap hari, kalo gak terus belajar pasti ketinggalan.

Nah kalo udah mikir yang begini, biasanya gw bakal mendapat semangat untuk berjuang lagi. Sekarang gw bener2 berharap kalo gw punya kekuatan untuk selesein semua project gw dengan efisien dan learn something out of it.

Nah itu dari segi teknis dan akademis… selain itu sebenernya gw juga punya masalah lain lagi. Entah kenapa, akhir2 ini gw merasa bahwa banyak sekali kejadian yang intinya adalah merugikan gw, seakan2 gw lagi hilang keberuntungan… Sejauh  ini gw masih berprinsip bahwa apa yang jadi hak gw akan gw perjuangkan, gw gak bakal terima hak gw dipermainkan orang, sekecil apa pun itu. Mungkin ini yang mengakibatkan gw sering merasa kesal sama orang2 tertentu. Gw gak bakal tolerir orang2 yang karena males ato apa, mencoba melanggar hak gw. Mohon maaf kalo ada yang merasa gak nyaman dengan ini, tapi sekali lagi, ini prinsip gw.

Anyway, terima kasih banget buat temen2 dan orang2 di sekitar gw yang sampe sekarang masih menganggap dan memperlakukan gw sebagai teman. Gw mencoba membantu sebisa gw, tapi gw gak mau bantu kalo yang anda harapkan adalah gw ngerjain project loe tanpa loe mau mengerti. Gw mau bantu sebatas ngajarin, bukan ngerjain.

Wow, baru kali ini kayaknya gw nulis blog ampe panjang begini, thx buat yang udah meluangkan waktu untuk baca, dan gw bakal appreciate any comments yang ada.
Mohon maaf kalo ada kata2 yang kurang berkenan, semuanya adalah berdasarkan pemikiran gw. Bagaimana menurut anda?

-Kurniady

Buat yang non-Binusian Computer Science major,
WP : Web Programming
CG : Computer Graphics
SAD : System Analysis and Design
e.COM : English competition gitu…

The holiday has been over since a week ago, and I am now entering the second week of the fourth semester of my study in BiNus International. Well, I think I should start with the evaluation of what I have done in the holiday, based on the plan I wrote in the previous blog post :

• Learning Japanese : Well… haven’t done a lot of learning Japanese, my progress was so slow, and now that it is just two weeks left before the departure to Tokyo, I think I should try a bit harder.
• Evaluation Reports : Done on time. ^_^
• Skating : I skated once a week during the holiday, except for one
  missed week due to the floods. Well, after the new semester starts, I
  found it to be difficult to maintain the frequency, but I will try to
  skate… perhaps on every Thursday night.
• Organizing Photos : Most of the photos are now organized and safely archived in my desktop server. But there are still a few photos (newly taken) in the memory card, should organize those as soon as possible I guess… Should prepare and try the Aperture software soon, so organizing photos will be easier in the future.
• Organizing other files : Well, I haven’t done a lot of this… and now the number of files are still growing… T_T
• ICPC Preparation : Well, still going to the trainings (or discussions, to be precise) regularly. Solved a few interesting problems… and now should start preparing the team notebook.
• Reading Lonely Planet - Tokyo : done during the floods (got nothing to do without electricity back then), but still not sure about how to spend the extra free days in Tokyo…
• Equipment Preparation for Tokyo : has not even started… but has decided to go for a new 2GB CompactFlash cards (instead of buying a Digimate photo bank), go for a new lens (still waiting for the cash T_T) which should be a Tokina 12-24 F/4 (wide angle zoom) and/or Nikon 50mm F/1.8D (a cheap sharp prime lens). I even thought of having a Nikon AFD 80-200, but then it is too expensive and carrying it along is not practical too.. The other one is that I should find myself a decent compactable tripod, (self-standing) monopod, or a gorillapod. It was very difficult to snap a slow-shutter night scenery in Kaohsiung and Hongkong without a tripod, so at least a gorillapod should help a little bit.

Now, enough with the holiday evaluation (which also contains plans…), and let’s talk about the new semester. Well, the first class I attended was the Computer Graphics class, by Mr. Raymond Kosala (he is a good lecturer, met him in previous courses). Heard that this course has been altered (upgraded in difficulty level) to match the quality of Murdoch University (a partner of BiNus International). Well, it comes with a very big project of modelling our campus. It is also an individual project. Wow!! I guess that’s quite too much for a project, but it’s marks 50% of the course, so we don’t have any other choice I guess…

The other classes went fine, oh yes, I forgot to mention, that the Student Services altered the schedule of my class so that now Monday is free for me ^_^… But the alteration was not announced until Monday (19th of February) morning, when we have already arrived in the campus!! What sort of service is that??!? The announcement was NOT even put in the website until Monday, but then it was backdated to 17th of February!! yes, that’s how those operations people do business.. I clearly checked the website on Sunday night (18th) and it wasn’t there…

The other thing was there are only five students for the Software Engineering stream, and therefore there are just five of us in the Object Technology class… and… uhm… not much else… I was also appointed to coach the preparation for programming contests for BiNus International students (preparing for BNPC) which is also open to high school students (preparing for TOKI), but since it wouldn’t start until next week, not so much need to be worried for now.

Well, I guess that’s it for today, and thankfully when writing this blog, I remembered that tomorrow I have to submit the project proposal for Computer Graphics!!… (almost forgot that one..)

-Kurniady