Pradeep Gowda

The about page

Pradeep Kishore Gowda

Hello! I'm Pradeep Kishore Gowda.

I was also known as Pradeep BT during my school days. My friends call me BT (you can too). btbytes is a nickname I earned at college because of my love for all things computers. (BT + Bytes).

I was born and brought up in Bengaluru (Bangalore). I did my schooling from Vijaya High School, National college, Jayanagar and went to college at PES Institute of Technology to study Mechanical Engineering (class pic).

I work as a software developer with an eclectic mix of Python, Erlang, C, Java and web technologies.

I currently live and work in Carmel,Indiana, USA with my wife Nayana.

Open source

Though, I am a gear-head by training, I'm a computer geek by choice. My love of computers started just before I joined Engineering, and has remained strong ever since. My first contact with Linux (May 1997 edition of PCQuest magazine) was love-at-first-sight. Even though it took me another 4 months I got my hands on my first PC, I was hooked to Linux. I've been working with open source for more than 10 years now. I use Linux workstations and servers at home and work. My open source "presentations":presentations

Computers

My first introduction to computers was at the age of 14 (class IX). ZX-80 and the green glyps of BASIC code. Looking back, I was quite good at it, but did not have enough context to pursue it further beyond the summer course at the school.

The long gap between CET exams and commencement of classes at PESIT, propelled me and a couple of friends towards a friendly computer training institute in the summer/monsoon of '96. We learnt C on a 386 and spent hours writing programs to draw things on screen. #include graphics.h, was the most popular line. Turbo C, I remember you.

I learnt C++ from the very knowledgable Mr.Vijayan at the PPR program during 98-99. Mr.Vijayan was our first real "Geek" role-model! (Just see the photo, it is very easy to make out who he is :) .

Python

I've been programming in python for more than 5 years now, after a few years with C/C++ (and Euphoria) in college. I'd like to believe that I've done a quite a few interesting things using python. From simple scripting to COM programming to Jython programming and web application development, Python has been a fun language to use. Teaching, esp teaching programming using Python is something I enjoy immensely. I often find excuses to spring a python on students and programmers alike, few of who are scarred by badly taught C/C++ and Java. There is still hope.

Reading

I'm an avid reader. I used to read anything and everything that I could lay my hands on. However, the coming of the *internet-s* has slowed me down considerably. I mostly read sci-fi, technology and Kannada books now-a-days. Asimov and Frank Herbert are my favourite sci-fi authors.

Babel

I'm a kannadiga by birth and I'm proud to be one. I immensly enjoy reading kannada books. Hindi is another language I can manage with some fluency; mostly learnt by watching too many Doordarshan TV serials :). I can understand other South Indian languages with various degrees of success. I know a smattering of Konkani too (ah! the challenges of wooing a Konkani girl :)
My name in three scripts [Kannada, Roman, Devanagari]

Interests

I'm interested in Datamining/Machine learning algorithms and advanced visualisation techniques as applied to business analytics.

I support these causes and projects

Affiliations

Published Sun, 29 Jun 2008 (updated Fri, 10 Oct 2008) under about personal

URL: http://pradeepgowda.com/me/

© 2010 Pradeep Gowda