The Dead Poets Society struck a chord with me because I have been thinking about the same issues it talks about for the past few days. What got me thinking was a conversation I heard at a party last week. This is how it went:

Kid: But mom, I don’t want to eat right now.

Mom: It’s lunchtime. You’re going to eat that chapati right now.

Kid: Okay, ma.

Mom: Why are you using your left hand to eat? Can’t you do anything right?

(At this point, my mom goes over to talk to that annoying lady.)

Mom: Say namaste to aunty. Have you forgotten your manners?

… and so on …

The conversation itself is not offending. In fact, I clearly remember being told to eat with my right hand when I was a kid (a piece of advice that still doesn’t make sense to me). What offended me was the fact that the mother was barking orders, in a way that made me want to put my fork down and leave the room. That kid could not have been older than ten. Show some love, lady. You’re supposed to be his mum. Oh well. What goes around, comes around.

Another story. A guy we (we = my family) know just enrolled his ten year old son into a boarding school. The reason? “He is unruly. We can’t take care of him.” Yeah, right. Do you expect military-style discipline from a ten year old? As far as I know, ten year olds do not want to take over the world (yet). Their curiosity gets them into a lot of trouble, but whatever they do is well intentioned. My parents were visibly shocked.

No one without a parenting license should be allowed to raise kids.

A buzzword (also fashion word and vogue word) is a vague idiom, usually a neologism, that is common to managerial, technical, administrative, and political work environments. Although meant to impress the listener with the speaker’s pretense to knowledge, buzzwords render sentences opaque, difficult to understand and question, because the buzzword does not mean what it denominates, yet does mean other things it ought not mean.

Twitter has a crisp, concise sentence on their homepage that describes exactly what their service is all about. Someone must have worked hard coming up with that description. Here it is:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

I’m going to take that description and have some fun with it.

There seems to be no mention of Web 2.0 there, so I’ll put that in. I’ll also toss in “real time”, because I can. The sentence now reads:

Twitter is a Web 2.0-based real time service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

What about “empower”? I think I can squeeze that in somewhere. Since “friends, family, and co–workers” sounds too normal, I’m going to replace it with “end users”.

Twitter is a Web 2.0-based real time service that empowers end users to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

“What are you doing?” is too easy to understand. It has to go. These days, “core competency” seems to be the hot new term in town, especially among entrepreneurs. I’ll re-phrase the blurb so I can throw that in, too.

Twitter is a Web 2.0-based real time service. Twitter’s core competency is empowering end-users to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What activity is the said end-user engaged in?

Something about “rich media” would be nice. “quick, frequent” can be replaced by “holistic, crowsourced” and “question” becomes “query”.

Twitter is a Web 2.0-based real time rich media service. Twitter’s core competency is empowering end-users to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of holistic, crowdsourced answers to one simple query: What activity is the said end-user engaged in?

Change “stay connected” to something better, like “allowing them to initiate a synergizing convergence of thought and action”.

Twitter is a Web 2.0-based realtime rich media service. Twitter’s core competencies are empowering end-users to communicate and allowing them to initiate a synergizing convergence of thought and action through the exchange of holistic, crowdsourced answers to one simple query: What activity is the said end-user engaged in?

And that, folks, is what grinds my gears.

Take my opinions on the Mac as a development machine with a grain of salt, since I’m neither a professional programmer, nor do I contribute to any major open source projects. I’m still in the early stages of hackerdom, and most of the code I write is either for learning, part of simple scripts I write to automate tedious tasks or, more recently, part of small desktop apps I write using the Cocoa libraries. Even though I haven’t written or worked on any complex piece of software, I grew up using Linux and open source software and have been exposed to many different programming languages (before I settled on Python as my language of choice). I installed Fedora Core 1 (or was it FC2?) just for fun when I was 14 and ended up using various Linux distributions for about four years before I bought my MacBook.

I bought the MacBook about 8 months ago, and started learning Cocoa for writing desktop apps for the Mac, and I’m loving every bit of it.

All right, here’s my list.

The Good Parts

• Mac OS X is UNIX under the hood. Heck, launch Terminal.app and have fun playing with awk, grep, sed and friends – the same stuff one would use under Linux. OS X also comes with Perl pre-installed. I have no idea if Python and Ruby are parts of the core system, but they’re definitely parts of Apple’s Developer Tools package.
• You can grab all your favorite editors and languages off MacPorts, which is very similar to Debian’s APT (actually, it’s closer to Gentoo’s emerge tool).
• Most Linux applications run perfectly on Mac OS X. In fact, many of the lesser known apps have Linux and Mac OS X ports, but no Windows ports. The Transmission BitTorrent client is one example.
• I believe the UI of my OS has a profound effect on my productivity. The OS X UI has been designed to not draw attention to itself unless you look very hard. Contrary to popular belief, OS X does not have any eye candy, unless you consider smooth transitions from boot screen to login screen to the desktop eye candy. Exposé and Spaces look like eye candy to someone who has never touched a Mac before, but they are productivity features which just happen to be beautifully designed. A stock Ubuntu system with Compiz has much more intrusive eye candy than a stock OS X system.
• If you’re looking for a new programming language and a new set of APIs to learn, then there’s no better choice than Objective-C and Cocoa (this is exactly what I’m learning these days). After having written a few apps using Cocoa, you will never want to go back to writing apps for Windows or Linux. The API is consistent and well designed, and contains classes for the most common tasks you might wish to perform in a desktop app. Interface Builder is awesome in the true sense of the word, and unlike most other IDEs, XCode is fast, responsive and almost a pleasure to use (almost, because I still prefer the editing capabilities of Emacs over any other editor).
• No tinkering with config files, no hardware driver issues, minimal maintenance, no slowdowns over time, no malware issues and not having to do an apt-get upgrade every three hours. The it just works nature of the Mac has given me more time to work on my own code, rather than spending most of my time finding ways around other people’s mistakes.

The Bad Parts

• If you’re writing commercial applications, then Windows is the way to go. Apple will never have significant market share on your average desktop, since both Windows and Linux can run on anything from a Rs.25000 ($500) Zenith desktop to a custom built, Rs.65000 ($1360) gaming machine, whereas the Mac OS runs only on Apple hardware.
• Macs don’t play well with other operating systems. Installing Windows using BootCamp works fine and dandy, but running it for a long time causes my MacBook to heat up to over 65ºC. While installing Linux on a Mac is easy, it’s not officially supported by BootCamp, and getting it to play well with the hardware requires many hacks and workarounds.
• Customizing a Mac is not easy. Linux allows you to customize every aspect of the OS, and even Windows allows a certain level of customizability, but the Mac allows none. Be prepared to either install unsafe hacks that mess with the OS or just STFU and follow the One True Way of Steve Jobs.
• Be prepared to pay for quality. The software-wants-to-be-free culture of the Linux world is not acceptable in the Mac world. If you can’t pay up, then have fun using unstable ports of clumsily put together GTK apps under the X-Server.

Even though the Mac has its own disadvantages, I’d rather use a Mac than a Windows/Linux machine for development any day.

When I walked into the zonal transport department this morning to apply for my learner’s license, this is exactly what I expected. I was relieved to find out how wrong I was.

The first thing that hits you when you walk into the office is the fact that there are no middle aged women who look like your distant aunt. After you’ve had a mental victory dance, you realize that the place isn’t as dreary as you would expect a government office to be. It has a strange sort of cheerfulness. Not the “Yay! I’m so happy!” kind of cheerfulness, but the kind of cheerfulness you find in workplaces where every employee is satisfied and prides himself on a job well done. The computers are all HCL workstations (with LCD screens!) running Windows XP (not really something you can be proud of, but at least it’s better than Windows 98 ). You can see ergonomic chairs behind every desk. A large LCD television adorns one of the walls. The lighting is top notch, and the tiled floors make the ambience even brighter.

(The office also seems to have a competent sysadmin. I first realized he was competent when I saw him getting frustrated at the guy at counter 3, who couldn’t get something very simple to work. He swore in the glorious sysadmin tradition, “What did you motherfuckers eat this morning?”, drawing curious glances from the people near counter 3, and a glance of deep understanding and appreciation from me.)

The only thing that reminds you it’s still a government office you’re dealing with is the long queue at counter A, where you have to submit the filled in license form along with an ID and a proof of address. Since I was early, I didn’t have to stand in queue for too long, but others were not that lucky. At counter B, a young girl took my photograph, signature and fingerprints, a procedure that took 30 seconds. I was told to go to counter 7 for a few tests.

The person sitting at counter 7 first gave me a color blindness test, which was basically an Ishihara Color Test. After that, I was given a simple questionnaire. It was nice to see that the transportation department has a sense of humor. Here are a few questions that struck me as hilarious -

Q: Why should one give more room to cyclists while driving?

1. Two wheels are unstable
2. They might turn anywhere, anytime
3. They have a right to more space on the roads
4. None of these

(I couldn’t figure this one out.)

Q: While driving at night:

1. Drive slow and look out for cyclists and pedestrians
2. You reach your destination faster
3. Cyclists and pedestrians don’t come out at night
4. None of these

Q: While driving at a high speed:

1. You reach your destination faster
2. One must adhere to the speed limit
3. You have more fun
4. None of these

Q: Two wheelers can carry:

1. Only one person
2. Two people – one in the front and one in the back
3. As many people as you can fit on it
4. None of these

Q: There are different speed limits on the road because:

1. Everyone is in a hurry
2. Buses take up too much space
3. Most people don’t drive in their own lanes
4. There are many different kinds of vehicles on the roads

(Another one I couldn’t figure out, so I marked option 4 because it was the most rational.)

The rest of the questions dealt with road signs, driving skills and road laws. There were total 30 questions.

The test took less than ten minutes, and the entire process took less than an hour (including the time it took for the person at counter A to fix a broken printer). This is the first time I’ve gone to a government office and haven’t spent the day there. It seems like the Indian government has realized that lengthy procedures actually cost them money. I just hope other government offices take a cue from the transportation office.

In other news, I finally get my very own car. It’s ten years old, doesn’t have an air conditioner and has a radio that works only when you’re not in the mood for music. But the features don’t matter. What matters is that I finally have a car. Take that, environment friendly public transport!

Hand-Holding Doesn’t Get You Anywhere

What I Did Wrong: I looked for a book on Qt which made understanding GUI programming concepts simple for a beginner such as myself.

Correction: Such a book does not exist. Picking up a For Dummies book (or something equivalent) means shooting yourself in the foot. If you expect people to guide you step-by-step through learning difficult subjects, you should probably not be writing code at all.

Immerse Yourself in the Material

What I Did Wrong: I searched hard for a book that would teach me Qt from beginning to end. I spent hours reading reviews, blog posts, forums and back covers searching for the One Book.

Correction: One source is never enough, and the One Book does not exist. The best way to learn any new API or language is to completely immerse yourself in the material. Subscribe to mailing lists, hang out in IRC channels, read blog posts, articles and tutorials, help people out at StackOverflow, read code written by the experts, try to modify existing code, add new features to your favorite application and talk to people who know the stuff well. Oh, and buy a good book.

Don’t be Systematic

What I Did Wrong: I tried to systematically study the material from the first chapter to the last, completing every exercise given in the text.

Correction: Being systematic is the biggest mistake I made while learning Qt. Trying to be systematic will only tire your mind as you tediously work through some trivial exercise the author thought was important. Programming is a creative activity. The most painless way to learn something is to just let your brain run wild. Speculate, dream, design, experiment. Skip the boring exercises and do only the ones you find interesting or, better still, make up your own exercises. When you find yourself unable to complete the task you put yourself up to, skip around the book and try to find a way to solve the problem.

Taste Things First

What I Did Wrong: As I read through the material, I typed the code samples into my editor to see what the author was trying to say. I moved on to the next chapter only when I had tried out every code sample and completed every exercise in the current chapter.

Correction: When you’re reading through the material for the first time, always read it like it’s a novel. Instead of focussing on how you can accomplish a certain task, focus on what you can accomplish. This way, you will know the strengths and weaknesses of your tools before you sit down to code. Most importantly, you will know where to look for the functionality when you actually need it. Reading the material quickly makes it seem like you’ve accomplished a lot in very little time which keeps your brain from getting bored. Also, it makes reading through it the second time (this time focussing on the details) much easier.

Aim High

What I Did Wrong: Whenever I didn’t understand something, I told myself it was okay. Whenever I felt stupid because I couldn’t grasp a simple concept, I told myself to relax. I thought it was okay to fail, and that not many undergrads even know about Qt. Hell, I thought, there are so many great hackers who didn’t even know how to program at my age.

Correction: When you’re evaluating yourself, always compare yourself to the people who are better than you. If you think you’re stupid, you probably are.

These techniques were partly based on this article. Check it out, it’s pretty good.

Here’s the BusinessWeek article about Satyam. As with most BusinessWeek articles, this is mostly just repeating what everyone else has been saying for the past 24 hours or so. The rest of it is just filler content. What’s really interesting is the comments section at the end of the article. Take a look yourself.

I’m summarizing the opinions held by the highly intellectual demographic which forms BusinessWeek’s main audience. Here is what people think about India (yay, us!) -

• We are all thieves and liars.
• All of us have an IQ of 81, which means all of us are more or less retarded.
• We brag too much.
• We pee in public.
• We suck because we wash our asses instead of using toilet paper.
• We don’t wash our hands before eating.
• This one is interesting – india is also kashmir. Um, what?
• South Indians should not be trusted because they are ugly and dark-skinned.
• … Indians are really ugly looking with miserable accents.
• Despite all of the above, the whole world likes India and Indians.

Some interesting facts emerge about Americans, Pakistanis and the English (“Britishers”) -

• Americans are thieves and beggard.
• People from America and Europe are ugly because their faces look like a mixture of salt and red pepper.
• Pakistanis are filthy and have an IQ of 70.
• Kashmiris are good but Pakistanis are bad.
• Pakistanis are extremely corrupt people. All of them have inferior stature compared to India. They are all lean and thin. Indians are well fed and strong. This is evident from the fact that India has won 4 wars till date and Insha Allah we will win the next war against Pakistan also.
• All Asian countries are 3rd world garbage dumps. Only Japan is developed because it is controlled by the West. If it was run by Japanese, it would be another 3rd World cesspool.

Every single one of the posters is, of course, a misinformed idiot. The worst thing is that BusinessWeek isn’t really concerned about the quality of content on their website. I have seen more intellectually stimulating content than that at 4Chan.

The power of social media, anyone?