About Semicolon Valley
March 7th 2008
Why not start calling Kathmandu Valley "Semicolon Valley" ? Few days prior to posting the first topic in the mailing list, I had a discussion with my friends about the idea of building a developers community around that name – "will this work ?". The cafe tea talks on college break hours and online discussion over Google talk. We were learning C/C++ as our university course . We called bunch of programming languages "semicolon family of programming languages" which used ";" as statement separator symbol. At that time, and still today, there is no better word to use for the place where most of the programmers are working on semicolon family of programming languages.
Our university and our colleges, the environment around Kathmandu Valley, it was an inspiring combination, with the word valley at "Semicolon Valley", we felt at home i.e at our Kathmandy Valley, while enjoying the thoughts of building a strong developers community around. Due to busy college schedules, exams, projects etc... The idea didn’t work as expected.
ढलेको सिन्का पनि नउठाउने, अल्छी बन्ने, अनि काम भएन भनेर कराउने, हामी नेपाली !
Few months back. Jan 2008
The shock was the realization. I found a common word to represent most of the popular programming languages in Nepal at that time, namely, C, C++, PHP, JAVA, C#.NET, Javascript etc.
I was playing with C programming language. I don’t remember the problem I was trying to solve with C but what I remember is I was using word “semicolon” and not the symbol ";" to separate statements. I was just gazing around the code with void mind. I stopped writing the code. Took out a new sheet of paper and was just randomly writing semicolon, giving it different shapes, different looks – the shock was the realization i found a common word to represent most of the popular programming languages in Nepal at that time, namely, C, C++, PHP, JAVA, C#.NET, Javascript etc.
/*—Hello World --- */
#include<stdio.h>
main()
{
printf("Hello World");
}
This code is small. It greets you to programming. The best thing about Hello World snippet is that you write this code only few times in your programming carrier, still it gives you a kind of good feeling that you actually “wrote” an application when you were just starting with programming courses.
Programming, broadly Software Development / Web Development starts with few lines of code (Current scenario is different though we have enough source code base to start with). The whole Software Development Life Cycle revolves around writing code, iterating, breaking down code to manageable classes, objects, modules call it DRY, call it KISS, name it XP, how pragmatic you are, what we software developer / programmer do is write code, iterate through tests, refine, refractor – do anything, everything, make the idea run without an error. Plain motivation here is “business ideas” should turn into nice and user friendly “software or web apps”.
There is a missing semicolon (;) in blah blah .. at line xyz. You can’t build software without semicolon. Can you? Yes. Actually we can build applications without it – but that depends on choice of your development language.
You know, there is one special thing about these semicolon family of programming languages – remove the semicolon (";") from one statement out of your whole code base of 10,000 lines the program won’t compile, will throw out an error. If you are curious why – try Googling few minutes. The error mostly reads like this – There is a missing semicolon (;) in blah blah .. at line xyz. You can’t build software without semicolon. Can you? Yes. Actually we can build applications without it but that depends on choice of your development language. We have Python, Ruby as popular languages these days which do not need semicolon at all.
For us at that time the motivation was to find out a common uniting term for developers, "the idea" of uniting developers together. We will forever work on this vision – the community is what fosters ideas. The community holds the spirit. We wanted to build such community.
Around March 20th 2008
I talked with my brother about the idea. With an proposed company name "Semicolon Developers Network" – which i wanted to work on at the time i was in college. The acceptance of the idea meant a lot to me. I was imagining about the days our team will work on "business ideas" with "Semicolon Family of Programming Languages" as development languages. Idea was cool, is still cool.
With kind of accepted feeling the question then was – did we have professional skills to turn ideas into softwares ? Working on a software development company with just an idea alone is a complete "risk". You could be bankrupt anytime. Convincing people, finding investors is not that hard – the most hard part is "completing the project on time", "maintaining a healthy relationships with client", building a nice looking company portfolio that would attract investors, ideas !
Professional development is a gradual learning process. You can’t fake it, you can not cheat on it. You have to pass through it, gradually.
The idea all of a sudden was – burden to me, mentally. Physically – i remember i have rarely had whole night’s sleep those days until the realization – things will turn right, bright but not overnight – cooled me down. I thank Seth Godin for his valuable tips each day. Yes fore sure, professional development is a gradual learning process. You can’t fake it, you can not cheat on it. You have to pass through it, gradually.
October 10th 2008
The company – Semicolon Developers Network – got officially registered with the government of Nepal. It was under the hood for 2 years. The “idea” was there within me at least and with them whom I have convinced I would give it a nice run.
Those two years changed everything. Suffocating two years with an idea means a lot of effort and time. College life over. Job hunts. Learning stuffs, teaching stuffs, wasting time wishing future of Robotics in Nepal.. A lot of stuffs. Jobs. Friends no more together – all working on different companies, different jobs. I quitted jobs at two companies.
November 24th 2010 ( Mangsir 8th 2067)
The company got its office at Shankhamul, Kathmandu. We have our website at http://semicolondev.com.
A lot of things changed. We too.
Reading Y Combinator’s success stories won’t help, working day night on our ideas would.
It took me those 2 years to build up confidence. PG’s Essays and lot of other startup sites and HN threads were very encouraging. Don’t read PG’s essays – if you have no plans to work on your own idea – they will transform you inside out. You’ll end up quitting jobs just for an idea. The idea which might work, might not work – and most of the ideas are already implemented. We should not be that obsessed with ideas – until we have confidence to work it out. Reading Y Combinator’s success stories won’t help, working day night on you ideas would. They do not fund Nepali startups. Startup HN calls are forced to behave as software company here in Nepal – you can’t convince your investors other way around, you have to do everything you can, an Engineer should know how to repair a tape recorder, format some one’s PC, help them buy a Laptop and build software while meeting with your GF only on weekends would mean that you don’t have time for them.
Nobody cares your ideas here, but you should !
Read the online communities, read ideas, get suggestions, rethink them – revise them – implement them here – they don’t apply straight to our land – Mount Everest looks cool, but environment here for “ideas” needs revisions. That’s how i managed the HN suggestions. Nobody cares your ideas here, but you should !
2011
Time has changed. Software world changes once in a day and twice in a night. The rate of change is high. New programming languages have been emerged. New technologies have been developed. We now are living in the Online World – here in Nepal too. For a moment, reverse back 4 years from now, think about the dialup internet from NTC.
There will be no time called “secure time” to invest on your ideas. The more complete your idea turns, the more success you could meet.
I guess, the "ideas" would make more sense now. Keep working on your ideas, revise them, search for feedbacks and get started. There will be no time called “secure time” to invest on your ideas. The more complete your idea turns, the more success you could meet.
The environment in Kathmandu is perfect to play with code.
The environment in Kathmandu is perfect to play with code. We want you to contribute to the community, your blog, your code repository at Google Code, Github, Bit-bucket, your answers to the community of Stackoverflow – they matter. They can change our tech culture one at a time.
Do you want to build Facebook, Twitter for Nepal ?? What about online Payments in our cities? Can’t we work on them ? What about online communities here? What about the "quality" of code we produce here. Why should a outsourcing company outsource here ? Can we meet the standards ? How far we are following standards in Software development ? Web development ? What about universities here, what they teach student here is to leave Nepal after graduation. When that's going to end?
2012
Who hasn't got ideas these days ? But is the idea worth our "time and effort" ? Will it change the world around us for good ? Can we build a working prototype, and then a MVP, and then a business model to make living out of it ? Can we start with this idea and turn it into a company ? Yes. By learning things, building things, sharing things and by starting today. One idea well executed could change the world for better.
For us, Kathmandu Valley is the Semicolon Valley
There are lot of possibilities tech sector in Nepal. We have to grab them, to solve them we need talent, we need competition, we need skills. Head with skills can shape things for better. Building skills needs passion, dedication.
नेपालमा धरहराबाट ढुंगा तल फ्याक्दा इन्जीनीयरको टाउकोमा लाग्ने सम्भावना 90 प्रतिसत छ भन्छन, तर के गर्दै छौ हामी इन्जीनीयर ?
How can software industry contribute to our economy ? Can we build standard quality software products here in-house? Can’t our outsourcing talents think about what is going on here too. Will you too just go along the way and won’t care about the situation ? Why not give our best and build things together for our country ?
Semicolon Valley is a perspective, its an idea which aims to foster ideas around, it is a community, it is about developers in Nepal constantly trying out and working together on "ideas", failing, repeating, sharing, learning online/offline, turning ideas into the world changing startups and companies – it's our story, it's our Kathmandu Valley.
By:
Bhupal sapkota
Dec 2012