I read tech blogs from time to time but have never published one myself. So, why now? Short answer: Feeling a bit obligated …

Despite a much needed reality check in 2000/2001 resulting in a rather painful setback, the technology industry has managed to prosper over the past two decades. Thanks to the relentless pursuit by a worldwide community of ever better software technologies in the form of open-source software and public knowledge base, we all benefit tremendously from having an abundant supply of tools and resource. Open-source software was mostly toy-ish or experimental stuff just 10-15 years ago. It now serves as the underlying technology foundation for many businesses. The vast knowledge base in the form of wikis, forums, blogs and Q&A sites have also made learning and solution seeking so much easier nowadays. It would be beyond joyous had Wikipedia, StackOverflow been available back then.

Throughout my 20-year career playing both the software developer and engineering management roles, I’ve learned a lot from my jobs and my colleagues, but more so from the said technology community. It has almost become an obligation that I should try pay back to the community, in a however small way. Besides some random thoughts on the state of the evolving technology industry or interesting things observed in my career, I’m hoping to produce also materials at the code level that are applicable to the very blog topic.

Since the departure from my most recent cleantech startup venture (EcoFactor) as its founding technology head, I’ve been working on some R&D projects on my own and have been doing a bit more coding myself – which is usually fun except when wrestling with some stubborn bugs. The slightly heavier coding work is indeed a refreshing exercise and is going to better equip me to give topical code examples, should needs arise.