Bannerghatta Zoo, Jan 28 2006

Bannerghatta Zoo, Jan 28 2006 002
Originally uploaded by keviv.

Raghav and I stand in front of the hippopotamus - well you cant see the one in the background because of the ones in the foreground!

Tsunami

Enough said - here is where you need to contribute towards the tsunami if you are able and willing.

www.mssrf.org - The MS Swaminathan Research Foundation

http://pay.hindu.com/thrfpay/thrfpay.jsp - The HINDU Tsunami relief fund

Specialized PCs or why I was right all along :)

In one of my previous posts on how the PC should be re-invented to cater to specific scenarios, I had mentioned some far out scenarios around catering to the Indian household - check the link enclosed in this post.

Although not directly relevant, it is clear that the PC is evolving from a generic one-size fits all device into a scenario-based "genre" device - a sign of things to come......

Also read this press note on Adam Bosworth's opinions on Packaged Software vs Software as a service - http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=07B7445E-F82C-461D-84BB-FED9DBC55C68

For the relevance of this post, I am culling out the portions you should be looking at - "....Quoting Apple Computer Inc chief executive Steve Job's, Bosworth said: "PCs need to be as easy to use as TVs and radios, the browser can help achieve that...."

Though I am not sure how browsers as a form factor will help accomplish that. Comments are welcome.

The Devolving Programmer

A really interesting posit on how programmers as we know them today will be subsumed by the commoditification of their skills;Read all three parts to enjoy the full import of Max Goff's suggestions......(click on the title of the post to be re-directed to the site)

Juxtapose this with my previous post on the Great Indian Con and you will begin to understand why it is important for us to move from commonplace to niche.

The Middleware Report

Hmm...familiar story....once again Middleware publishes a benchmark report comparing .NET with IBM (please note, not J2EE) and once again the results are favourable to Microsoft.

While I question the contradiction of a report remaining "independent" while being "commissioned" by an IT vendor, I think it is fair to say that all of the research muscle that MS has put behind .NET seems to be paying off - might as well acknowledge all of the good work they have done and continue to do in the tools space....

On this topic, it amazes me that developers who are usually such a pragmatic lot metamorphose into such intransigent zealots when it comes to languages and development platforms - Any comparison is always followed by heart rending but ludicrous cries of "unethical", "unfair", "sold out to the devil" (wtf?)......

Take a look at this - http://www.fogcreek.com/About.html (yes it is from the redoubtable Joel Spolsky :) ) So what are we really fighting for?

The Great Indian Con(tractor) or Why the Indian developer needs to grow up....

Hmm....I dont know how to say any of this without causing considerable angst but here goes it -

I was in a technical event last week ensconced somewhat uncomfortably in a dimly lit auditorium in the midst of an eager, young and aggressive crowd of developers, listening.

Like all technical sessions, this one was also inundated with questions from the audience - no problems so far. What struck me though was that very very few of the questions were really intended at sharing some particular insight or to broaden any perspective of either the audience or the speaker - it looked like the only intent was to -

1. Put the speaker in a spot
2. Showcase the questioner's superiority (real or alleged) to his audience and
3. Enjoy 15 seconds of fame

At the risk of being severely censured I am going to make a sweeping generalization which bitter though is true - this attitude seems to be typical of the average Indian developer eager to make his mark, anxious to differentiate himself from his less-fortunate peers, on the prowl for the next three letter acronym to decorate his resume.

As much as this may be a behavioural trait of an individual, the problem is a little more deep rooted - If you have been in this industry long enough you will begin to realize that the average Indian developer has unfortunately commoditized himself.
He also can be typified -He "knows" half a dozen programming languages, "has worked on" two or three databases, "talks" about how cool one algorithm is vis-a-vis another and of course my favourite - loves the philosophy of "free" be it soda, music, games or software.
Every Indian developer today is a replica of the one before him who is a replica of the one before him who is a replica of......you get the idea.

Herein lies a curious dichotomy - while our system is churning out wannabe developers by the hordes with nothing to differentiate them, each of these developers spend a life time trying to stand apart - a very noble ambition if not for the almost machiavellian mechanisms they employ in doing that.

The other notable point which comes up is because the Indian society is inherently heirarchical, one really effective way of standing out seems to be to become a.....hold on......yes.....Manager

-Have you ever heard this conversation before - "I have over 4 years experience in bleh, blah and blooh so I should be a tech lead." or the ever prevalent "I have designed and architected foo and faah and was managing a 6 people team and I have over 24 months exp...."(24?!!!!)
(btw even yours truly has been guilty of this though this was when the world was a better place :) )

Which begs the question - when will we move from commonplace to niche? When will speciality be appreciated and rewarded? When will recruiters stop asking for "atleast 2+ yrs exp. in Java, XML, XSLT, SOAP, WSDL, .NET, C, C++, Python, C#, SQL, Oracle, DB2, blah blah blah"?

Google and the Semantic Web

Found this really interesting perspective of Google's proposed dominance in e-marketplace (circa 2009).