Debasish Ghosh
Who is Debasish Ghosh?
I am the CTO of Anshinsoft Corp, though I would like to call myself a technology evangelist, a hacker and a programmer at heart. I love programming and, if it were a socially acceptable norm, I would like to do only that and nothing else in my day job. I have more than 20 years of programming experience, started with C, graduated to C++ and then on to Java. My love for JVM still continues. The affiliation for language however has changed to Scala and Clojure. I also enjoy programming in Erlang and have been desperately trying to get my heads into Haskell. I am an open source hacker, creator of open source projects sjson and scouchdb and a committer in the Akka project.
Why Scala?
I do not subscribe to the view that pure functional programming is the be all and end all to developing software. I like object oriented technologies and feel that the right blend of OO and FP provides a viable mix for building modular software. Scala is object functional (actually Martin Odersky calls it post functional) and is a multi-paradigm language on the JVM. It has a rich type system, provides the right balance of purity and pragmatism, offers great concurrency features and above all an easier migration path for Java programmers. And for me the language fits like a glove coming from the verbose domain of Java programming. Its great fun programming in Scala. Another great plus that hybrid languages like Scala offers to developers coming from imperative programming background is that they provide a gateway to the pure functional languages like Haskell. Now that I have been programming in Scala for the last 2 years I find it easier to grok Haskell.
What does your typical day look like?
I have a day job where I try to do lots of interesting stuff involving multiple technology platforms, mostly on the JVM. We deliver back-office solutions for the capital market domain – hence there’s no dirth of interesting technology solutions cooking up within Anshinsoft. Occasionally you will also find me in many of those corporate and HR meetings that I have to attend on a regular basis at my workplace. On many occasions I am in long telecons with our clients discussing project issues or future roadmaps. I come back from office pretty late in the evening. I am not a party animal and love to stay indoors and spend time with my wife. After dinner, I usually do a couple of hours of hacking before I crash for the next day.
What do you do in your free time?
Of late, I hardly get any free time! Currently I am involved in three open source projects, all of them based on Scala.
- Sjson is a JSON serialization package for Scala objects.
- Scouchdb is a Scala driver and view server for CouchDB.
- Akka is a Scala/Java middleware that offers scalable, fault-tolerant concurrency and remoting through actors to applications on the JVM. It’s founded by Jonas Boner and I am a committer in the team.
Besides being involved in these 3 projects, I am writing a book named DSLs In Action to be published by Manning this summer. The MEAP is already available since October (http://manning.com/ghosh).
Still whenever I can manage some free time I jump on to some place else for a quiet week of solitude.
Current favorite apps?
- JRebel
- Specs
- Scalacheck
- Google Chrome
- Git
What OS do you prefer?
My hacking projects are almost exclusively on Ubuntu. It’s currently my preferred OS.
Small picture for your Workplace?
Favorite: Color, Font, Language, JS Framework?
- Color: Black
- Font: Inconsolata, Proggy
- Language: Scala, Clojure, C
- JS Framework: node.js
Name something that has inspired you recently?
- More committment to open source development
- Erlang as a middleware platform
- NoSQL
What do you prefer (and why)? Freelance work or full time employment?
Full time employment as a hacker where I don’t need to get involved in the chores of managerial activities.
What are your personnel projects and goals for 2010?
Complete the book, learn Haskell, contribute more in Akka, do more of Clojure
I have a Java background and attempting to learn Scala and recently Clojure.
I find Jonas Boner and your work very useful in our projects and look forward to learn more about Akka and SCouchDB and very interested in your assessment of Scala versus Clojure.
It will be good to be proficient with both but certainly we seem to no have sufficient milliseconds to learn new languages particularly when trying to provide direction and training to new programmers in our team.
So far we are peeking at Scala and Clojure but most of our work uses classical non-FP Java and lately Java on Google’s App Engine and somehow depending on Gogle’s products such as GWT and Guice including work for the Android platform.
Again, thanks for your work, blog and input; look forward to reading your book and seeing entries comparing Scala and Clojure for paid programming labour; thanks;
Seriously, I don’t like u becoz u like JVM. For that matter, I don’t like anyone who likes JVM.
Why can’t you depend on perl + Haskell combo ??
It has lot to offer.
OOP is not the end of world :-).
Tho I don’t like u, I like your page and the way u presented it.
Thanks
hiiiiii sir…i m a people who love java and very passionate to work on java…..And i m a big fan of anshinsoft bcz this comp mainly work on java.Sir i want to join dis company but i see that ur comp only take experience people….sir if any place for freshers and java loving people then plz in form me….i m eager to work on java and with ur comp……….