My blog has been moved to ariya.ofilabs.com.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

even QPainter has QPainter::end()

I came to Trolltech (then became Qt Software, then Qt Development Framework) early last year, at the time when the Trolls were busy stabilizing Qt 4.4. I was assigned to work on QtWebKit, so right from Day 0, I did carry out my best patching skills and committed my burst fixes as fast as I could. Qt 4.4.0 was released shortly after, followed by 4.4.1, and the remaining 4.4.x series.

Summer was fun. I learned a lot about WebKit, git, development workflow, the art of backporting, and a lot of other stuff. Together with Samuel, we did resurrect Graphics Dojo. Ever since, I am sure you spotted a bunch of biweekly graphics and WebKit examples I posted: 27 examples this year and 12 examples last year. Autumn brought me to my first Qt Developer Days 2008, both in Munich and Redwood City. We also did a bit of tour to the east coast, back to around Mountain View, and most importantly I got to know the best juice in the world.

at work

I completely forgot to blog about this, probably because it was not worth mentioning, but during this time I rightfully obtained my Ph.D degree (or rather the official Dr. -Ing). My 70-page dissertation is available for download, still I suggest reading the summary in the 8-page paper. FWIW, I passed with magna cum laude.

After the winter break (I did two trips to my home country), spring brought us the long-waited Qt 4.5 along with other blessings (LGPL, open repository, contribution model, S60 port). Qt for S60 was getting hot, I wrote a bunch of smaller examples, OpenStreetMap, ray casting, and some others, all of them showed up as new examples in Qt 4.6. After all, I am always thrilled to offer our valued customers some blue sky approaches and streamlined, breakthrough paradigm shifts so that they can better monetize their mission-critical, enterprise graphical applications in this quality-driven, business-focused Web 2.0 world :-)

It also meant the traveling time (for doing talks) started again for me. For a lowly code monkey like me, I am proud (on Nokia's behalf) that this year alone, I had delivered 5 (mostly successful) graphics-related presentations in open-source/developer conferences: Pycon Italia in Florence, LinuxTag in Berlin, and of course Akademy in Gran Canaria, Maemo Summit in Amsterdam and Qt Developer Days in Munich.

At this point, you can probably guess how it would end. Our last short, memorable vacation around Europe was enough hint. Yes, today is my last day in the office. Our flight back to Indonesia is due within few days. The parting is amicable and amiable. The Last Supper, for my (soon ex-) team mates has been served, too.

Spare the tears, follows is the actual resignation e-mail I sent to our internal mailing-list (the "Foul Stench Officer" refers to the durian incident back then). Last note: my e-mails ariya.hidayat@trolltech.com and ariya.hidayat@nokia.com will soon RIP.


Subject: Even QPainter has a QPainter::end() function
From: Ariya Hidayat <ariya.hidayat@trolltech.com>

After being involved in the affair of "connecting people" <insert the jingle here> for some time, I decided that it is the time to move on. If everything goes smoothly, then starting from November 1st (which is a good day, since November is the 11th Gregorian month and 11 is the first double-digit prime number) I would not work for QtSW anymore. Going through a lengthy discussion, my other (better) half and I finally came to a conclusion that Oslo, as beautiful as it is, is not really the place where we want to settle down, at least for the near future.

I still hesitate to definitely mention where I would be stationed by the end of this year. This is because many things depend on e.g. the visa process (as uncertain as the Schrödinger's cat), and being a citizen of a country stamped in the "terrorism haven" list does not really help. In the worst case, I will take a short leave in my career and spend time with my family, in some sunny city (comparable, if not better, than Las Palmas) in our home country. In the best case (finger crossed!), it will be another sunny city, somewhere in California (to avoid speculation, I can safely say beforehand: no, right now I have zero interest to work for a search engine or a fruit company).

I have been using Qt since my C++ skill was still a joke. Rest assured, I will be still using Qt in the future, at least for my personal pet projects and/or my spare-time joyful endeavor with KDE. And although it has nothing to do with Qt, I can proudly say that my coming professional activities will be still around open-source projects (surprise!).

It is an honor to serve with all of you, my fellow Trolls!

Your Chief Foul Stench Officer

END OF TRANSMISSION


23 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know you and you don't know me "personally".
But I enjoyed your Qt technical blogs and i will miss them. Hope you will continue to pleasure us with your precious intellect.
Good luck.

Kemas said...

Welcome home, Ariya. :)

We need people like you in our country. Don't worry about being unemployed. I am sure you will find soon a better job here with your skills and qualifications. Now it's time to start thinking about other things in this life. :)

Anonymous said...

Ariya has all the prerequisites to be a Googler. Plus the modesty.
Apple / Microsoft / Facebook / Twitter can't go wrong either.

Go Sillicon Valley!

guruz said...

Good luck in your future life!

Anonymous said...

Damn - between you and Zack, it seems that Trolltech have trouble holding onto their Graphics Ninja(s?)!

Anyway, all the best for the future!

Anonymous said...

I take it then that Nokia does not allow you to do the work that you do now remotely? Can they not timeshare you between offices in Australia and Norway so you just get the long summers and not the long dark winters? I enjoyed your postings btw, very useful (both code and food).

Good luck, steven

Antonio said...

Hey Ariya, you will keep contributing greatly no matter the employer, I am sure.

all the best.

Erlend said...

thanks for all the good work you have done. i hope you won't leave the kde project 100%.

it was really nice meeting you and your – according to you – better half at the gcds this summer. (i was the guy who kept talking about how i love indonesia and indonesian food ;))

best wishes,
erlend

Fabien said...

Thank you for your work on the Graphic dojo, and good luck !

Anonymous said...

Good luck in your life Ariya, inchallah

Unknown said...

terima kasih atas software yang luar biasa pak ariya. mau empat jempol, tapi gak sopan pastinya :)

Matteo Bertozzi said...

Surfing labs.trolltech will never be the same.
Keep us updated with your photos and code!
Good luck!

Morten Krosby-Sæther said...

Good luck on your next adventure! :) May you path be paved with fortune and fame (if it wasn't already:)

Alexis Menard said...

Good luck dude, I'm sure we'll meet in FOSS conference...

I will definitively miss you and our private jokes...

Anonymous said...

I guessed I could meet you at Palo Alto (Qt training) so I'm sad.
Good luck.

Kyrre said...

Nooooo.
It is really sad.
Thank you for everything you have done for QT and KDE in this periode.
I will miss your food pictures:-)

Thank you

Mohammad said...

Wah rapi bener mejane :-D

Selamat ya pak, sukses selalu

Alexandra said...

Good luck for all that will come your way!

And yes, I will miss you.

Hendy said...

Ditunggu update statusnya di Facebook posisi lg di mana :)

Pingin ketemu euy.. even just for a moment

Gary.Wzl said...

Love Your Work
Good luck in your future life
Greeting from China

ketut.web.id said...

Good Luck...

VDVsx said...

Thanks for all your great demos!!!

Good luck for the future.

P.S: I'm in California right now, and they do have a very nice weather ;)

Victor Noagbodji said...

i wish you luck! the best one can have in their life.

i really like your contributions. they are the reason why i subscribed to qt labs in the first place.

i will follow you like a stalker whenever you end up because i know you will still be doing fun graphics stuff. and one told me that you learn best with people that are passionate about what they do.

thanks.