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Learn, Innovate And Share: Rules Of Thumb At AZRI
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“For an open source project to have a fair chance to evolve, technologists and business drivers have to collaborate towards ensuring the same,” says Prajwala Manchikatla, application developer at AZRI Solutions Pvt Ltd in an exclusive interview.
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Thursday, September 02, 2010:
Please give a brief introduction of yourself.
The Internet fascinates me. And, the unlimited scope for innovation on the Web using freely available open source tools excites me too. Over the last five years, since my graduation as a software engineer, I dedicated a lot of time learning and working on various OSS projects with my team at AZRI. I echo my company’s philosophy of building smart applications that make the Web a better place.
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Today, I work with brilliant people where we develop products on cutting-edge Comet Server technologies, develop applications for Facebook, build applications on Drupal, Ruby on Rails, Django and Twisted frameworks. As a matter of fact, one of the products we developed was the first representation from India showcased at TechCrunch 50 in the 2008, in San Fransisco. It was innovation that preceded Google’s Wave in terms of real-time collaboration.
At AZRI, we believe in three rules of thumb that an application developer is encouraged to abide by: learn, innovate and share. Now, I lead my company’s effort of sharing code with the community. I suggest you look out for our contributions to Drupal over the coming months.
What role do you see open source playing in organisations right now, and in the future?
In the past, organisations invested a lot of money in developing software and adopting them. In its early days, open source software was not seen as something mature, and as a result, proprietary software was preferred for its guaranteed performance and support. We have come a long way since then.
Today, open source software stacks have matured and become very reliable. There are many business models wherein companies like AZRI support open source software and guarantee performance. It's a golden opportunity for many organisations to work with teams like ours to cut down on costs of software licences by adopting open source, and in turn invest the same money on business innovation, process efficiencies, and focus on achieving greater stakeholder value in the form of profit.
In years to come, I believe companies like AZRI will support and run open source software on the cloud, thereby ensuring that our clients only pay for computing resources they utilise, or invest in business-specific innovation that would enable them to position themselves as value differentiators in the markets they operate in.
How are you using open source - personally and professionally?
I love Ubuntu, and that’s what I use at home and at work. I see no use for proprietary and commercial software in my daily life, whether it is for watching movies, editing and store photos, writing documents, coding, making presentations, etc.
At work, our entire office runs open source. We use tools like Redmine for project management; we execute projects with a global delivery model using distributed version control systems like GIT. Think about it, we using open source tools like Selenium for functional testing, we are reviewing Webload for performance testing, and we are happy with our findings. Our design team is very comfortable with open source design tools like GIMP. Our marketing team makes presentations using tools like Open Office. So, why should a technology company building and marketing Web applications need commercial tools at all?
I think ignorance prompts many people to pay and use commercial software for personal and commercial use today. And, it is the responsibility of OSS business drivers to educate people on the merits of using open source.
What according to you are the challenges for open source, and how can they be overcome?
There are thousands of open source projects out there. SourceForge alone hosts over 200,000 open source projects. However, open source is not just about code. And, good code alone doesn’t make a project successful.
It is a whole philosophy that demands strong leadership, governance, commitment to quality, consistent documentation standards, active community, champions, dedicated core group and clear business drivers. Today, there are very few good open source initiatives that have all these ingredients. For an open source project to have a fair chance to evolve, technologists and business drivers have to collaborate towards ensuring the same. It cannot be just about a bunch of developers putting out good code. Also, educational institutions should have curriculum that teaches open source as a business model and technology choice.
What are some of the open source technologies that you are excited about?
I think people are more demanding today. A few years back, only stock brokers relied on live data. But today from e-mails to Twitter updates to conversations, every possible communication service is moving to be real time. We at AZRI, work on a real-time collaboration and productivity applications using Comet Server technologies that enables the server to push live data to browsers. I do see such tools making a lot of difference to the way we look at information from the Web. I am also excited about voice and data open source tools that bundle and enable triple play services and cloud-based services.
What will your session be about?
I am conducting two sessions. One on building powerful search in Drupal and another on core concepts of JavaScript, which in my opinion is one of the world’s most underestimated languages.
Building Powerful Search in Drupal:
Connecting users with content they need when they need it, isn't just optional anymore. Google has raised the bar, and today users expect high-quality search results that help them find what they're looking for quickly and easily. Tools like Apache Solr and Lucene address these needs. The talk will be on using Apache Solr in Drupal to make search powerful. We will also talk about Faceted Search and how this helps users get refined results and improve the usability.
Core concepts of JavaScript:
My goal here is to debunk the notion that JavaScript is only for front-end developers, and do so with examples. In the past, JavaScript was seen as a language used by amateurs. But today it has become the language of the Web by default. AJAX also brought JavaScript back into the spotlight again. And, most Web developers look at JavaScript as a language relevant for the client side alone. However, JavaScript is also used on the server side. For example, today CouchDB uses SpiderMonkey as the JavaScript engine to perform MapReduce and update validation functions and more.
What do you hope to accomplish by conducting this session?
I believe many coders who are keen on building Web applications need to ensure that their work is usable by the end user. And, today’s users demand faster access to information they seek and a good and seamless user experience. So, I concluded that ‘Search’ and ‘JavaScript’ are two areas where I can share my learning and knowledge on. I sincerely want to help my peers leverage open source to its true potential, and understanding the latest developments in this space will make it that much better for all.
Is this your first OSI Days experience?
Yes it is, and I am eagerly looking forward to this event.
What are your expectations from OSI Days 2010?
I am looking forward to sharing experiences, new learning, networking, advocating my company’s work in the field of open source, identifying collaborators for open source projects we are working on and contributing to the OSS community in India. Most importantly, I am looking for feedback from the community on a new OSS contribution towards ‘Social Learning’ that my company is planning on showcasing at this event. It really is an exciting idea that we are working on. So, I would ask participants to watch out for the same.
What sessions are you looking forward to at OSI Days 2010?
I am looking forward to hearing more about ‘Citizen Journalism’ on Drupal, cloud hosting, HTML5 and applications for iPhone using OSS tools.
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