Dreams do come true! – Amsterdam tour

When I watched a hindi movie “Hum-Tum”, I got to know about a city called Amsterdam where some part of movie was shoot. And since then I was dreaming about “Amsterdam”. Not dreaming actually , I was day dreaming 🙂 . And I knew I won’t be getting a chance to go there. But I was wrong.

I got a chance to go on a bushiness trip to Belgium. I was just released from a project and my senior managers called me one day and asked if I am willing to work on some project. This time it was not a typical development project but it was related to release management. I said “YES”. We were in our directors cabin and discussing about my stay in Belgium. And next what I heard , my ears couldn’t believe that. I had to go to City Amsterdam after every 15 days, stay there for a day or so and come back to Belgium.

“Woo Hoo!! Dreams do come true” I said……

As this was not my first trip abroad but still I was very excited… I guess I am always when it comes to traveling… 🙂

I reached Belgium. I started off with my work. And then the time came when I had to go to Amsterdam. I had book my train tickets much in advance. From office I directly went to train station. There was no direct train. I had to go from Mechelen to Antwerp first and then from Antwerp to Amsterdam. Its around 1.5 hr journey from Antwerp to Amsterdam. I reached around 7:30 pm. It was snowing that time. Luckily the hotel which I booked was beside train station. I bought a coffee and something to eat before I checked in hotel. I logged in my laptop and found nearby places which were walking distance.

Next day morning, I was ready around 8 a.m. I decided to have my breakfast outside as it was bit costly in hotel. First I went to see Madame Tussauds museum. I was in a queue to purchase my ticket. Then one lady who was standing in front of me told me she has a discount coupon and a person for whom she was planning to use that coupon is not coming. She told me that I can take that discount coupon else it will go waste. I was reluctant first, but then thought any way it will go waste and if I take it , it will save some bucks for me which I can use somewhere else.

Museum was awesome. I took few pics of mine with help of others as I was alone. You will find statues of many famous people here. This museum is very similar to one in London.

Royal Palace of Amsterdam : The Royal Palace of Amsterdam is situated on Dam Square in very the center of Amsterdam. The building became the royal palace of King Louis Napoleon and later of the Dutch Royal House.The Palace has been opened to the public for most of the year (open the whole week except Mondays). Only on days of Royal Events, it is closed for tourists. I was amazed by the richness of the palace. So many rich paintings , glass items, furniture etc.

Amsterdam Canal Tour: This is the most memorable visit in Amsterdam. In front of hotel IBIS where I stayed , one can book those canal rides. I got a nice company during boat riding. He was a guy from China who came on a tour to Europe. You can explore the city with this canal boat tour. Amsterdam is home to more than one hundred kilometers of canals. These 17th century canals are on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

What I missed in Amsterdam is cycling and shopping market specially antique center. But I always buy some or other thing from every city I visit always. This time I bought a cigar for my husband, which we both tried when I returned back to India. We both are non smokers, but just like that 😛

Are you disciplined coder? My checklist before code check-in

Now a days in agile development we follow many practices like continuous integration, test driven development and track progress using various other tools and metrics. But still we might not deliver quality software.

In my opinion , code quality and discipline goes hand-in-hand. Unless you are a disciplined coder , its hard to achieve code quality.

Here is my check-list before checking in code.

1. I have followed coding guidelines and standards while writing my code.

2. I have my unit tests(using JUnit, Mockito, TestNG etc) ready and code is properly tested.

3. I have done static code analysis. You can use various tools like Sonar, FindBugs, Checkstyle etc.

4. I have done peer review. Well one can ask if step 3 is already done then why peer review? There are certain defects or improvements in code that can be identified by only skilled developer. Also your peer can review other things like requirements , design documents , test cases and other deliverables are in place.

5. once step 3 and 4 are done then again go for step 2 and 3 to check if any new findings are introduced by code review implementation and I have covered unit tests for adapting those changes.

6. I have properly commented code. Have meaningful description for classes, methods, variables etc.

So all is well now and I am ready to check-in my code. Hey wait , before check in make sure you have tagged this with proper task-id and provided meaningful description. It is still not over, wait until your build is green :), so that others work is not affected because of you.

Happy coding!!!  🙂