Archis's Blog

I saw Eclipse for the first time on 2001 when looking for the ACM ICPC websites. It took a while to get installed. Worked damn slow. And was boring for one-file projects. In 2003, I worked on a project with 2000+ classes and complex class heirarchies, and ever since then, I swear by Eclipse!

Eclipse really is, in some cases, a silver bullet to solve problems. The IDE can actually understand semantics of your project – something Visual Studio still doesn’t have. Eclipse had this in 2001. What this means is that Eclipse actually understands your class heirarchies, method calls, object relationships, etc. in terms of OOP concepts and not as code. Eclipse can therefore provide automatic refactoring support comparable to no other IDE in the world.

For example, suppose you end up designing 10 exceptions as you work on your project and one fine morning decide that you feel 5 of them are related and you’d like to make them a subclass of a common superclass cause it would make more sense to future developers and also allow you to catch the similar exceptions in one catch clause. Well, all you’d have to do is select the five classes in the project explorer window, right click, and choose “Extract Superclass” and wallah! A superclass is created, all common methods are extracted and put into the superclass, and all class files modified automatically. Now that’s cool!

Of course, there’s a lot more where that came from. I couldn’t find the same functionality in VS anywhere so far. VS is more like a powerful editor with a view of showing all files in your project on one side. But beyond being a single-file editor, it really doesn’t impress me as being able to understand my entire project in its entirety. Now I may be mistaken, and maybe there are features to do this in VS. But as I’ve learnt at Microsoft itself, if I don’t know how to use it, then it’s a “Unix Solution”.

The conclusion, if you look around a bit and work on one large-number-of-classes project in Eclipse, you’re never going to use anything else ever again.

And don’t even get me started on the plugins, I’m only basic these opinions on the JDT. There’s a whole deal more to Eclipse than just the JDT. And that’s where the magic begins. VS.Net ends at being a development IDE. Eclipse only begins with being a development IDE and gives you a lot more as you go along.

Sorry Microsoft, but that’s one product I’m not letting go of.

(I think 99% of my friends fit 99% of the criteria above perfectly!)

I wasn’t planning on blogging till next week and have loads of blog entries in the queue, but this one just struck me as being very important. I’d like all of you to think about this. We all get confused by the definition of an “expert”, and I’ve devoted countless blogs to the cause of de-mystifying them. And this is one aspect of an “expert” that may be one of the parameters to separate them from experts.

Most of the time, an expert is someone who comes around to you and performs some magic trick (something you could have googled for in 10 minutes with “C programming tricks”) and is called an expert simply because he/she knows something you don’t. Nine out of ten times someone has proven their expertise to you, they’ve either told you or demonstrated something in front of you that you did not know about. Be it some C language trick or some some fancy tweaking in Windows, it’s always to do with something that you didn’t know about.

Hundreds of mailing lists and orkut communities dedicated to such magic tricks. But an expert is not a magician. He is someone who is well-versed in a field of study. If you ask an expert _how_ he figured out the said trick, and if he can’t answer, then I have no need to tell you what next. My previous blogs should be clear enough on what I’d expect you to do next. To reiterate myself, such people will not listen from any communication activity executed from the front side vocally, but will need a communication methodology that involves their rear end.

Understand that expertise is about being able to find out the tricks and hacks and developing methods to do the same. Googling and remembering such hacks does not constitute anything at all – expertise or otherwise. Such idiotic people are generally those publicity-starved teenagers who have the uber-cool notions of hackers from movies. Generally, I don’t feel any anger at all towards such people, as compared to the amount of pity I feel on their ignorance.

Very recently some dude began telling me crap about how I should never have left ISSC and began praising UoP in front of me. I really don’t mind people having freedom of opinions, but I do wish they’d get the facts before they come and talk to me. I’ll probably know more about the UoP than many others and hence it’s not a good thing to irritate me because you get a special position on my blog everytime I get irritated.

This time around, I’ll say for the first time officially, that the comparison _is_ fare between colleges and the University. And by the time you’ve done reading this blog, you’ll be wishing that I had said that it was unfair. Let’s see why…

It’s true, colleges don’t have Net/Set qualified teachers (I’ll go into the importance of Net/Set qualification later). And the University also doesn’t have any Net/Set qualified teachers. Hence, we have two very comparable entities. And now comes the problem. How do I know one is better than the other? I never claimed FC is better than UoP (but it is in my personal opinion – surely, until you provide me with proof, you would not expect me to change my opinion, would you?) But I have no sufficient evidence to see UoP is better than FC.

If you can get the admission applications to the departments at UoP and compare them with FC (with appropriate scaling to portray that FC allows applications from only _local_ and _computer_science_ graduates, whereas UoP (ISSC) allows applications from all over the place), you’ll find quite some fun facts. I had warned you a long time ago, mathematical games are dangerous.

If you want to see the extracurriculars, no team yet at the ACM ICPC from the UoP. I don’t need to say anymore. The ACM ICPC is the “Quidditch” of the computing world. If you can’t compete there, nothing else counts.

As for quality – well the ACM ICPC judges algorithmic ability, programmatic ability, and problem solving skill, mathematical knowledge, etc. Not competing there has made this point futile. Contact me when you do.

I’ve been told that they compete at CodeJam and Bitwise every year. I really don’t consider them “official” contests, but hey, can I please have the rank lists? Again, no ranks from FC either. As I said purely comparable. No evidence of any superiority whatsoever. First we must establish difference. Then we must decide whether the difference is positive or negative. No difference makes the point futile.

Now let’s come to the syllabus of ISSC: Some of it was taught in undergrad, some of it in postgrad, some of it was taught which was clearly wrong – still not faced such a situation in FC. I’ll contact you when I do.

Abusive language by teachers: Totally unheard of at FC so far. No need to compare. You win!

VBScript-Virus-on-LAMP-website: Totally unheard of anywhere yet. (I get a kick out of saying this all the time – this is just so ridiculously stupid - it’s incomparable with anything I’ve ever known in the history of computing stupidities.)

And now lets come to why Net/Set is important. Because if it’s not important, anyone would pass it. The fact that I don’t know many teachers at UoP having cleared this exam is itself it’s importance. The UoP claims to be very great and all. So surely someone having passed an exam that they failed in, would be twice as great (at least). If the exam is crap, provide justification. No “sour grapes” arguments will suffice. And if so, convince Prof. Mashelkar of the same. Let’s get CSIR to scrap the NET. It seems that this stupid fellow is making NET mandatory to gain the JRF (Junior Research Fellowship). What do CSIR labs know about “quality” right? Those stupid people at IUCAA and NCL and NPL and BARC. Damn them to hell. We know what real quality is! It means not passing exams!

The problem here is that the UoP teacher was very quick to point out my own exam grades from 10th and 12th, which, where never claim to be certifications of ability of science. They’re just qualifier exams. But she and the director conveniently find them very important. Now, I find the Net very important. The director is a VERY BIG member of the INSA (Indian National Science Academy).  Surely, if he were to propose Net be scrapped, hundreds of thousands of people would be happy in Pune. So how is it that when it comes to UoP the rules change. I never saw an interpretation of democracy in this way. The democratic application of rules and regulations based on an individual’s wishes. Wow! We’ve got to give this to those stupid Americans. We must allow Osama Bin Laden to democratically choose what laws apply to him and what don’t. How come, all things being equal, and there being no differentiating parameter between the two, I keep hearing UoP is better than any college.

As always, I’ve given facts. No opinions. You’re free to feel what you think. And allow me the freedom to do the same. Last time I checked, India was still, at least constitutionally, a democracy.

Very recently, I met a couple of dudes from some prominent companies (no this isn’t a criticism of “industry experts” although I’m tempted so much), who started criticizing me for having joined Microsoft (as if I am responsible for what MSFT does – yes yes, I know every time a FOSS project is successful, any damn idiot on the road goes about proclaiming how “we” won - as if that person contributed anything to the success, but I don’t work that way).

He started asking me if I knew any Windows internals and whether I could study how it works and all that and began criticising Microsoft outright and began cursing and using abusive language. Then he started telling me how Linux is great because people can study how it works. The problem here is that I really would also like to study how Norton Antivirus works and how the Sybase storage engine works or how Oracle works or how the Veritas Volume Manager works (cause these were the companies that they told me were “Linux friendly”). Anyone willing to provide me with links?

Come on FOSS heroes, when you open your mouths, give me answers. All you guys out there criticising me, just send me links to the amount of code you’ve personally contributed to FOSS (here’s some of my own: http://www.geocities.com/archisgore/projects/, http://yoda.sarovar.org/), the amount of code your own company has contributed to FOSS (I have none, and I’m guessing most of your companies have none), and the number of personal contributions you’ve made to make Linux popular at your own risk, on your own time, and out of your own energy (I’ve got CSLinux to prove that – which you guys openly opposed because giving an easy distro to people undermines your superiority). Casual saturday evening meetings don’t count. I want to see the number of sleepless nights you sat there figuring out strategies to help 100 colleges use Linux.

Let’s come to the point of “Linux Friendly”. The University of Pune’s School of Scientific Computing, considered Sybase to be “better” software because it runs on Linux. Now tell me, how does software become “better” by running on Linux? (This was before the whole virus-on-website issue and I actually expected them to be able to think – sorry, sometimes a person like me gets carried away with expectations from impressive-sounding-named institutions) Oracle was bad (in the days when the Linux kernel was not adapted for it to work) and MS SQL Server. Well, I don’t see the Sybase code going through a hundred eyes. Can’t figure out what makes it so secure! 

There are hundreds and thousands of such freeloaders using lies, philosophy and proprietary standards to fool people. We must be wary of them. For some reason, at this point, I actually sympathise with Stallman. ESR’s business-friendly approach is partially responsible for the current situation. Stallman’s hardliner stand of “GPL way or the highway” would actually have given credit where it is due. In a way, we must give credit to Stallman of having guessed what would happen with a softer stance of “open source” instead of demanding pure freedom. Now we can’t separate the real contributers from the freeloaders – or are we too afraid to do so? Wait for my next blog titled, “Fear is the path to the dark side of the force.”

This will be quite wierd. Calyx 2006 took place in January 2006 and will take place once more in December 2006. That’s the problem with having an academic year that begins and ends somewhere in the middle of the calender year.

Anyways, Calyx is back with all the fun and excitement and I can see that teachers have already begun preparation. Currently topic suggesstions, rule settings, etc. are being decided and once the undergrad exams get over in  a couple of days, they will have a 10-day Diwali break after which it’s “All hands to battlestations”.

I’m extremely impressed by the synchronization of the Second Years this year and would not be surprised to see them taking the lead in every aspect of Calyx. Regardless of what teacher asks me my opinion, I’m currently recommending SY’s as the top volunteers under consideration. Come on juniors, don’t let me down. I’ve not seen such a great batch in a long time when it comes to organising events. If you can repeat the magic of the freshers’ party, you’ll make the second Calyx 2006, better than the first one. I’m expecting loads of volunteers.

I’d love to be heavily involved, but due to other commitments, it seems that my fate is not so good. If you need any help, however, feel free to contact me 24/7.

If you have any crazy event ideas, crazy poster ideas, any crazy ideas at all, then I am throwing open this forum for discussion. Let them all come in. Let’s see what you want.

Based on the kind of preparation underway, this should be a mighty event to be reckoned with. All your support in finding sponsors, inviting people – includes experts, friends, competitors, etc. and last but not least, competing in the event yourself and showing them all just how Fergussonians do it!

I get hurt by the amount of “grown ups” that I see around me. I was recently asked why I hang around with juniors so much, mostly the FY’s. Well, the answer is quite simple, you’re all too grown up for me. I just saw the movie “Finding Neverland” after a long time and felt like expressing my own views on Peter Pan.

It’s no big secret that we were all afraid of growing up when we were young. I still get freaked out when my mom mentions the word “marriage” in front of me, and others don’t understand what the deal is since they believe I should be able to talk about it normally by now.

It’s actually a pity that India is a country with a chronologically young population trying to grow up too fast. Maybe it’s all this ancient philosophical stuff that’s being fed to them by parents or it’s the whole educational system (which I will attack a bit later), but the reality is that kids are being asked to be grownups too fast. Kids should be playing and fighting and arguing and name-calling and having fun. Instead, I see five-year-olds being scolded for coming second in the class instead of first. I see 8 year olds being sent to a billion classes so their moms can boast in public parties. What the hell happened to us? We got freedom, we have a democratic country, when will we wake up and smell the coffee?

I still dream of becoming a Power Ranger or a Jedi Knight, and building my own Batcar, and learning Ninjutsu (being inspired from the Ninja Turtles). But somehow, I find my friends to be too old to discuss these things with. They’re what is generally called as “pragmatic” and “rational” and spend time discuss theiring own marriages or bollywood love affairs all day long. What the hell happened to this young promising India?

We use the words creativity, innovation, passion, etc. and we don’t know what they’re about in the first place. Every major personality who has made a difference in this world was a child. Pure, innocent, full of convictions, confident, adamant and demanding. But day after day, society is against such traits.

Look at Bill Gates and Richard Stallman. Both are just so convinced about their point of view and are so childishly adamant about it that it’s benefitting society. Microsoft comes up with idea after idea and Stallman keeps coming up with idea after idea. Both of them in an unending battle to prove their superiority. That’s what makes the computing industry such a fun place to be in.

Look at even Mahatma Gandhi himself. He was so convinced that we should have freedom, that he simply sat down and refused to budge until the British left – not very different from how I used to demand Ice Cream when I was younger. What these cases have in common is that a child is totally convinced that he wants ice cream, and he demands in adamantly. But at college, I have to politely ask if anyone is up for going for a coffee these days.

Science is the same. One morning the child inside a US patent clerk decides that some dude called Newton was all wrong about how the universe works. He got up and adamantly kept insisting on having his own way with Gravity. And he became one of the most influential scientists of all time. If he were a “grownup” like us, he would have gone by Newton’s position and status and all that stuff and never would have challenged his theories. It was the child in him that was defiant and adamant and so full of energy and enthusiasm which made him successful.

Why can’t we just be happy knowing our kids are playing on bicycles and falling down and getting hurt and playing with dogs and cats and attempting to communicate with them (I spent two years trying to teach my dog to speak, being totally convinced that my parents had been careless with him as a pup and hence never taught him to speak themselves). We dreamed of building cool gadgets, and I even have sample blueprints of a prototype Batcar. We’re too plagued with marriages and examinations and companies and philosophy and status and reputation. And it’s hurting our future generations.

We need schools that would encourage kids to talk to their dogs and make them speak (you never know what might happen). A pragmatic and rational approach of telling them to give up is the real culprit. It inhibits their imagination. So what if they imagine? I still can’t go to movies with my friends because they never watch X-Men or Spiderman and the like, and I can’t bear to see a guy and a girl crying over their parents’ disapproval.

Now I want to comment on what I shall define as “Intellectual Genetic Material”.

Remember how genetically close relatives’ offspring can have genetic defects? In fact the Egyptian royal race died off due to marriages between siblings for generations (the same happens to Voldemort’s ancestry in the Harry Poter series). I believe the same happens to ideas. Intellectual matter must be mixed, thrown around, discussed, spread, debated, argued and fought over. Remember how we used to get involved in fights about which of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the best? They were full of energy and confidence and passion and conviction and sometimes they degraded into physical violence. We fought because we believed our favourite turtle was the best. Why don’t scientists in India show that same passion towards their ideas? Why is there so much conformance in the entire system? Why are one billion people having similar opinions?

I think we’re lacking the thought material for producing better offspring in ideas and hence generation after generation they’re becoming more defective.

I believe that is also the problem with our educational system. I used to wonder what is wrong with it and could never put my finger on it. Then suddenly I realised the error. The system is perfect on paper and in theory. It’s problem is that it’s dated. It has not changed, evolved or undergone random mutation. That is the problem. It’s not dynamic. And that’s why the kids who learn in it are also the same. It’s so structured that a whole ecology has formed around it – there are “paper patterns” and “exam strategies” being used for ages now. It’s like an old building with vines and trees growing around it and putting their weight on it so that more floors can no longer be added. We are so dependent on the structure that we don’t want to disturb it, because it would mean killing all these vines and bushes and shrubs that have grown around it.

The system has not intermixed with others around the world. It has not given anything to others around the world. There are too many grownups taking rational decisions now. We don’t have kids who can say, “Hey all those old dudes were wrong and I know how education should be done.” If Einstein were in India, he would have been criticised for attacking a man of Newton’s “status” and “position”� who was a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and a Knight of the British Empire. And in the same way we discourge hundreds of Indians from crazy ideas.

In fact, I say we must encourage them to find flaws with Einstein. We’re in the space age now. We need different ways to travel faster than light. I say kids should grow up dreaming to disprove Einstein’s limits to the universe. They must grow up questioning Alan Turing’s theories on computation. They must grow up questioning everything they see around them. They must question why dogs can’t speak. And if they find an idea, they must be trained to be adamant about it. Be it the freedom of India, the Theory of Relativity or their favourite Ninja Turtle. It should be no different.

When discussing with Ashok Saraf sir on the previous issue, the mail turned to thoughts on education.

I remembered a talk given by Vivek Sawant a few years ago (he was just a normal guy at C-DAC then, and he still is a very normal person today). He told of his discussions with Prof. Vijay Bhatkar (who turned sixty today).

I don’t remember exact statistics, but I think that in the next five years, around 25% of the country’s population will be under the age of 30 (give or take a few units). And he was commenting that the main concern was not about elite institutions like the MIT or Caltech or CMU being set up in India. The main concern was to educate all these people. When you consider 25% of one billion, it comes to 250 million. So the major challenge that India will face is like nothing the entire human race has ever seen before in all of recorded history. How can a country educate 250 million people? Conventional rules of the game will have to be changed. We will need revolutionary and creative solutions. We will need out-of-the-box solutions. It will be a challenge worth watching and learning from. If India pulls this off, then I feel that the stories of this feat will become a legend for the next century.

It would be very exciting to see what we are capable of. India has a track record for having some of the most unique problems in all of history and also having the most unique individuals capable of solving them. The very recent Mahatma Gandhi (Lage Raho Munnabhai seems to have had a profound influence on me, but I would really have said this anyway), is the prime example. This is going to require something very unique and something that has never been attempted before.

And open source will play a very vital role in this scenario. FOSS will no longer refer to software, but everything. Educational tools, books, hardware, devices, and software to make it all work. I think it’s time open source promoters put aside their differences and stopped the constant defensive positions they take and look forward to this.

What company in the world has the resources to handle the infrastructure that will be needed to support this system? 250 million youth requiring computers, support, software, updates, websites, mail services, blogs, etc. It’s going to be something the world has never witnessed. And India will make it happen! We can, we will do it!

(thiking…. This one is going to make my blog famous)

It’s actually very sad to watch National TV and see the reservations debate going on. For some reason, I consider myself pro-reservations. Now now, before you get all emotionally fired up, let me make it clear. I used the word pro-reservations, but I really meant to say pro-fairness.

While watching a certain show on NDTV, all the IIMs and IITs were proclaiming that they’re have most meritorious students in India, while the statistics I saw on TV told me that 60% of the country’s population don’t even have access to a television set that would allow them to even watch this specific show in which they were called stupid and dumb and low-quality. Since when did the CAT and JEE get supernatural abilities to judge the abilities of all Indians and select the top 2000 from them, even when 60% indians of Indians didn’t even know that such an institution exists? Good God! We really seem to have some great managers and technologists in India. I don’t think even the ETS is capable of making such a claim. Those damn Americans! What do they know about testing the abilities of all Indians even when they do ot appear for the entrance? We have great Acient Indian Magic which allows us to do this!

Before you get emotionally fired up again, please understand that I’m not _unfairly_ criticising the IIMans. They’re good no doubt. They get the best amongst those who applied to the entrance. To claim that everyone who’s good applies for the IIM would be an anti-constitutional statement – remember we’re in a democratic country. People have the right to not apply if they so feel. All I demand, is that be fair to those who didn’t apply. Listen to their opinions also – just because someone’s not in an IIM doesn’t make them stupid – I don’t believe Lalu Prasad Yadav ever went to an IIM. But from what I hear, he is making profit in the Indian Railways for the first time in the history of the country. No matter what you say, you can’t say he cannot protect the business interests of his company. Make sound and objective arguments against reservations. Simply saying “We’re the best in the entire country and we know what’s best for the entire country” is not a very good way of exemplifying this democracy.

Let’s look at it from the point of view of the entire country. How many people in the IIT and IIM attempted the entrance more than once? How many of them went to a coaching class? How much did the coaching classes cost? Does everyone in India have the same resources for competing on equal grounds? Is this coaching class not a sort of “reservation” for the rich few? Before you start telling me how coaching classes are available to everyone for reasonable costs, you’re assuming everyone’s living in the heart of the city. The nearest IIT entrance coaching class from my house was 22 KM away. The nearest CAT-coaching class is a bit closer – around 5 KM. Now I live in a reasonably located outskirt. I know loads of people who never could physically travel to a class even if they could afford it (including myself).

So how come only those who live in the right location, can afford the right classes and can attempt the CAT multiple times be called “meritorious” and the “very best in India”? Hell, for all the votes that IIMs and IITs are showing against reservation, if we only allow those votes who came in at the first shot without coaching, then we shall see fairness. Because most of the reserved castes fall in this category. Perhaps being a pure scientist, I understand the definition of “comparability” much better than the managers, but I’ll give a bried overview here. Comparability is always done on the basis of identical conditions being created before an experiment is performed. Without this no scientific community will accept any crap whatsoever, regardless of how elite you are.

Moreover, I may have gotten this wrong, but I think no pro-reservation politician is asking for separate evaluations and examinations within the IIM. I don’t think any one of them is asking for high grades. They’re only asking for the opportunity. If they’re so stupid, then let them enter – in fact, I would _defy_ them to enter. Let’s conduct a scientific experiment – like we do in my profession. If they keep on miserably failing, then it would be so easy to push back reservations. Our point would be conceded by the entire country. I don’t think anyone would want to get into an IIM and ruin his career by maintaining a failure year after year. They would stop using the reservations altogether. But as with any manager, they’re afraid of scientific experiments, because science is a double-edged sword. Before conducting this study, everyone in India must sign consent that if the reservation-entry people do pass, and that too with good grades, then we shall stop calling them stupid. If we want to benefit, we must be ready to pay. This again, is based on democracy and fairness. If we prove them wrong, they must admit to never utter the word “reservations” ever again. And if they prove us wrong, then we should keep out mouth shut on the issue of them being asymtotically dumb.

I had in fact proposed a very nice scientific experiment some three months ago when this debate began, although I never blogged about it. The IIM people are great simply because they earn more money. Because that is the sole criteria (and yet somehow the IITs claim Microsoft is evil because they want to earn money – but we’ll target this hypocricy later). Placements, money, and pay packages make them great. It’s great! Now, I only request them one thing. This could cost them a bit, but it’s ok – we’ve read about their pay packages in the newspapers so I know they can afford it.

All I want is that the top 2000 reserved category applicants from last year who don’t have money (this excludes the creamy layer), should be sponsored by an IIM alumnus for one year to the best CAT coaching class. They should get all the comforts of not having to work part-time and they should get all the quiet study time without their daily worries. As to the definition of the creamy layer, since this is not an official government sponsored study, I leave them free to choose who is not in the creamy layer.

And then, let us consider the results of this study. I’m a scientist, so I’m not really pro-reservations or anti-reservations. I only blogged about this because when someone begins calling his countrymen stupid and dumb, he should be able to provide proof of it. Being a scientist, I don’t care about opinions and arguments. I like cold, hard, and comparable results! Please let us do this. It may turn up that the reserved people are so stupid that even after this priviledge, they don’t perform. In which case, we can shut them up for once! Completely! It may also happen that they do perform well given the right conditions, in which case we must shut up at once! Completely!

Please understand that this article is not in opposition to or in justification of reservations. That’s an entirely different matter. But I really don’t like comments being made against a community who was never given the right to defend itself. All I say is that we should accept that we’re the best amongst a very few, no doubt that we are the best amongst them! But only _among_them_. We had this talk during the code4bill contest too. So many people in the country do not have an internet connection and I knew many friends who could have made it to the top 20 if they had that provision. So far as we think of the few who applied, the top 20 are the best. Completely agreeable. But we dont go about commenting about being the best in the entire country – especially one where 60% if the population does not even have access to a TV set.

My request to all readers is that if you hear an anti-reservations guy justifying his cause, please do make sure he is making moderate statements. Reservation is no answer to the problem of unfairness. Comment all you want about this. Please dont go about calling those who never had the same priviledges as you, stupid and dumb.

The reason I, of all people, am sensitive to this is because I’ve gone through all experiences. I’ve been driven to thinking about suicide by the University of Pune just around six months ago because they didn’t like my face. Now if my examinations were never fairly evaluated, on what basis should they go around calling me dumb and stupid? Please, let us be fair and moderate. They’re our own brothers. We’re going to be living in this country together for years to come. We must end this peacefully and objectively in such a way that no community gets hurt.

The popular cricket-team analogy:

Now, I want to comment on the e-mail that is going around the internet about some dude claiming that the Indian Cricket Team should have a few NTs and STs and OBCs and so forth. This person has not understood the basic principle and concept of reservations at all. I admit, being a management guy they are trained at coming up with popularist attractive analogies, but the limitation of never having studied science makes these analogies rather weak. As a moderate scientist, I must clear up this confusion for everyone.

Reservation is about _opportunity_ and not _guarantee_. Please understand this statement very carefully. The appropriate analogy with the cricket team is that whatever number of open category players are invited for the tryouts, the same number of reserved players be called for the trials also. Nobody is guaranteed a position on the team. They are guaranteed the opportunity to show their ability. I think we should ask the Director of the IIM board since he himself would be able to answer the question of whether the Government of India sent him a letter forcing him to _pass_ students of reserved categories. I seriously doubt it. He is only asked to give them the opportunity to appear in the examination. Nobody is asking them to be made managers, but everyone wants them to have the opportunity to prove their smart, and scientifically thinking, it is also an opportunity for us “smart people” to prove they’re dumb (if we’re so sure of it, why not see it in the exams?)

Let me give an analogy to the original cricket analogy going around the internet (surprise! surprise! scientists can come up with graphic analogies too!)

Suppose a prominent American sends out the mail:

“Indian babies have a higher mortality rate compared to American babies. Indian babies are weaker than american babies and appear as if they were malnutritioned. This means that Indians are of a lower and weaker race compared to Americans. I believe we should stop them from coming to America. I believe the Indian cricket team should be made up of the genetically superior Americans.”

Isn’t this the most offensive thing you ever heard? Well, your own cricket mail is equally offensive. What this mail doesn’t take into account is that Indian babies don’t “appear to be like malnutritioned babies”, but they really are malnutritioned! Indian babies don’t have the average healthcare facilities available to their American counterparts. But suppose we ignore this “opportunity” that American babies have above us, then yes, we are an intrinsically inferior race. But you would immediately say that they should wait till India is a developed country and everyone has the same healthcare and then see if Indian babies equal the survival rate of American ones. Why don’t you wait till everyone in the country can afford a 1 lakh per year coaching class before calling them stupid?

So how come, when there are coaching classes for CAT and GATE that sometimes charge upto 1 lakh per anum, do the very people who benefitted from these coaching classes go on national television and start calling anyone else stupid? I believe when everyone gets access to these coaching classes can we make an educated statement. Will Narayan Murthy speak against coaching classes on national TV calling them an unfair advantage? Will the directors of IITs say that the government should ban coaching classes? Or how about if we give reservations in coaching classes instead of in the IITs and IIMs themselves? I think that would be fair also. Coaching classes are like mental healthcare facilities for the dumb and stupid, IMHO. So how come people who need them are the ones calling others dumb and stupid?

These comments sound offensive don’t they? Well, imagine how much you offend 60% of our country when you make them on television and they don’t even know such statements are being made. You can vent your anger by flaming me and even perhaps physically harming me on the streets. But when you make statements against people who don’t even know the internet exists, do you think that’s bravery?

All I say is that be fair to them. They _do_ have a point. Their solution may be wrong, but hey, it’s all our own country. We must propose better solutions to the problem instead of going around calling them dumb and stupid. If we are the smart ones, how is it that we’re acting just the opposite of what we claim?

The Gandhigiri approach:

If they ask for 50% reservations, then give them 100% reservations. Remove all open-category people from the IITs and IIMs. Let them run the entire show. Boycott it. Peacefully. No abusive comments, and no name-calling like 5-year-old school-girls. They will realise that quality is maintained by “good people” (does not necessarily equate to “open-category people”). Over time they will realise their mistake. This may take two or three years, but India as a country will have improved. Anyways, since we’re all so intelligent and smart, we should quietly go to oxford and harvard where there are no reservations and let the IIMs be 100% categorised. Anyone up for Gandhigiri?

One of the Mahatma’s statement prominently shown in Lage Raho Munnabhai was, “Dar hi sabse bada rog hai” (“Fear is the worst disease”). Are we afraid of being shown that they are equally good and that the monopoly we’ve enjoyed for so many years may be at risk now? If we’re not afraid then let us peacefully show them just how dumb and stupid they really are. “Fear is the path to the dark side of the force, once you walk down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny…..”

Well, every year I read articles about how Microsoft will be completely dead in the next year, and while expectantly waiting for it, I never witnessed it. The problem with predicting the demise of a company like Microsoft within one year, which has continually adopted to the changing scenario is a bit naive, if not completely unfounded.

We had an interesting discussion on our local mailing list about it and it essentially drives all Linux fanatics to a defensive stance and they start using swear and curse words for no reason (or is there a reason afterall?).

The question is, “What if Microsoft open-sourced their products?”, and began earning from services? Will you accept them? And the unanimous answer is “no”. Well, incidentally for the variety proponents, this is a bit of a wierd stance to take, since anything that anyone sees other than windows is all Unix. I see that Microsoft is a very important factor in the success of open source, and that’s not going to change for a long time to come. If suddenly Microsoft were no more, I doubt whether half the developers out there would be working with as much zeal and passion as they are today.

For instance, most (not all) of the Linux world is very good at a low-cost re-implementation of proprietary technologies, but very few of them have been incubated and developed in-house. Take a look at XGL. XGL is a very focussed effort once Vista declared that it would use the 3D power of the graphics card for the basic windowing subsystem instead of specially invoking it only for specific applications like games. Without this focus and this target of killing off Microsoft, I doubt if this effort would have reached consensus so fast about the API’s, standards, architecture, etc. I don’t doubt XGL will have Flip 3D done within a few weeks, but the point is it would have been really difficult for some newbie vector-graphics guy to get on the forums and get it developed without having a role-model to look at.

It’s no secret that 99% of the GNU tools were developed _on_ unix as parallel versions to the unix tools that existed. There was no new security model, no new filesystem model, no new pipelining model that Linux brought in. NFS/NIS were implemented to ward off Solaris. The network stack was implemented using the Berkeley stack as a reference.

The same applies to cross-platform development. Open source needed Java to fuel it’s own JVM. For 30 years unix-style development hadn’t changed at all. However, the way people develop applications keeps changing every year on both the Java/NetBeans/Eclipse stack and the .Net/VS.Net stack. Again, once they had Java to focus on, it was easy to develop a parallel JVM (and yet, open source Java is just so damn non-conformant, that I hate to develop anything on it). However, the standard C-based development hasn’t change at all over the last decade (or even since the ’80′s).

I’m a Java hardliner and love it. I can download a JVM and Eclipse for my win98 machine and my parallel Linux install and wallah, I can boot into any OS I want, fire up Eclipse and I get the user experience not possible by VS.Net. I really hated Open Source when they wanted Sun to allow them to play around with the Java specifications. Mono attempted that with .Net and look at the result. They’ve got Qt# and Gtk# and Winforms at once. Developers don’t know what to use. Choice is good. But lockin is bad. The Qt vs Gtk war is bad enough for me as a developer. I hate it and hence I use Java for all my GUI development because of SWING. If FOSS wants to start breaking standards there too, then I’m going to be one very vocal pissed off developer.

I really don’t understand their ego problems with reimplementing the APIs. Sometimes I feel they oppose intellectual property because they’re not capable of generating any and hate anyone who does. For god’s sake, if you want to do something new, them implement a faster GUI, design good GUI’s for Squid and sendmail, implement a vector-graphics-based gaming engine, and stop messing with my APIs. APIs help me target my code to my users. Stop showing your ego of doing something “different” by messing with my APIs.

Ok, so you don’t like Sun controlling the APIs. Perfectly fine. Then go to the ISO and create your own Java API standard and get it approved and STICK TO IT! I’ll support this move. Till then I’m sticking to Sun’s Java. You know why? Because Sun tries to do something different by coming up with new security architectures, and better development models, and nice build tools like NetBeans instead of coming up with a whole deal of different non-conformant APIs and creating hell for me by making me code the same damn thing in all of them so that all of my users can use them.

I believe that the opposition from Sun is what keeps Gcj on track and focussed. If Sun were to really open up the API for modification, it would drive a lot of us Java guys nuts! In a way, controlled standards are my only hope of preventing a lock-in.

Look at the whole Linux scene over the last 5 years. In the late ’90′s, Red Hat was the great Linux mascot. Now Red Hat has become evil. One year ago, Ubuntu was a ripoff from Debian and Ubuntu was a bad thing. Today Ubuntu is something everyone must use only and using Red Hat is as bad as using Microsoft. In these religious battles, it’s the developer who gets frustrated. But a controlled LSB standard, the very thing that is non-free (free as in free speech) is the very thing that prevents developer lockin to any one of these distros. So long as you code your programs to the LSB, it’s bound to work.

All in all, this is a very interesting thing to be looking forward to in the coming few years. Can open source really sustain itself without an external enemy to focus on? Can they define standards and stick to them? We know they can define standards, the second part is very difficult. The real problem is that the very thing that MS gets cursed for (the bloatware) is also the very thing that makes it work. After 10 years of dropping support for DOS, finally 100% compatibility with DOS apps will be dropped in Vista. COM can still interact with .Net. The win32 API still lives on. It’s the entire stack that has to be backward compatible for developers.

In fact this is also the true reason for success of Linux. The point that I mentioned above applies with equal force to Linux as well. Many function names, many shell commands, many tools have names which were used for a different reason in the early seventies on Unix. They’re non-intuitive and they’re not as revamped as they could be. But that’s what makes them work. The kernel’s own API may not be something that everyone likes, but Torvalds’ very strict control over it is what makes it really work. Imagine if you had multiple forks of Linux with different APIs? Would it really work? Isn’t Torvalds a lot like Sun Microsystems in the way he controls the standards?

I know, I know, I can always fork it. But then would I be allowed to call it Linux? Now that’s a major bummer question. Torvalds has a copyright on that name. I don’t guess a gcj implementing a different API that doesn’t conform to Sun’s specifications could be used so long as you don’t call it Java. Then what exactly is it that makes Sun so evil? Or could it be the fact that they make money?