An interview with Umakanthan Chandran
December 7th, 2007 | Published in Google Desktop API
Umakanthan Chandran is the current leader in the Developer Hall of Fame and the author of 30+ gadgets.
How did you get introduced to Desktop gadgets?
Actually, I started developing gadgets after I participated in a Google gadget contest in India.
When did you start writing Desktop gadgets?
What other programming languages and platforms do you know?
What do you think is the best gadget you've written?
What's your favorite gadget that you didn't write?
Which ones do you think should be written?
Some simple multiplayer games.
What's the most exciting thing about writing a gadget?
What would you like to see next in the gadget platform?
What's your favorite elegant solution to a difficult problem?
What's the most embarrassing bug you ever coded?
It happened in a tool I developed for my teammates to record their daily activities. It should have showed each user his or her own data. Instead, it showed everyone the data of whichever user happened to have changed his or her data most recently. After analyzing the code, I found that the bug was caused by something embarrassingly simple — misplaced parentheses.
What's your favorite book about programming or computers?
What's the best advice you can give to a new developer?
What's your favorite TV show?
What's your favorite movie?
Is there anything else you'd like to say to Desktop gadget developers?
Big thanks to Umakanthan for taking the time to answer our questions. More interviews are coming, so stay tuned.