My Quora Posts

I’ve been writing on the Quora platform since Sept 2015. So far, I’ve answered questions relating to Infotech, Philosophy, programming how-tos, databases, carnatic music, books, art, literature and  “homework-assignments disguised as questions”. Some highlights.

1. Database Design (1, 2)
2. Project Management( 1, 2, 3 , 4 , 5)
3. Neuroscience
4. Software Process
5. Programming Tools
6. Philosophy (1, 2)
7. Existence
8. Parallel worlds

Enjoy my pastime!

Innovation Track Records of foreign vs. India-based tech firms

Innovation Track Records of foreign vs. India-based tech firms.

1. IBM – The IBM 360/370, mainframe computers, mini-computers(AS/400), The Personal Computer, Ted Codd and the Relational Database Theory, programming languages like Fortran, PL/I and myriad others, The Compiler Discipline, the Backus-Naur form, Virtual Storage, Deep Blue, Watson and countless others.
2. Apple – The Apple II, The Macintosh, iPhone, etc.
3. Microsoft – Visual Basic, Internet Explorer, Office Suite, SQL Server, and so on.
4. Borland (Heard of it ?) – Turbo Pascal, Sidekick, Paradox, Software Lifecycle managers, Delphi and so on.
5. Digital Equipment – PDP-11, Vax/VMS, Ultrix etc
6. AT & T – Unix.
7. Sun – Java
8. Oracle – Databases
9. SAP – Enterprise Systems.
10. Google – Should I list ?
11. Nokia ?
12. Samsung ?
13. Commodore – Heard of it ?
14. Atari – ?
15. Sony – ?
16. Du Pont – ?

India:
1. Infosys – Finacle ?
2. Wipro – ?
3. TCS – ?
4. Biocon – ?
5. Ranbaxy – ?

Both in quantity and quality, it is the consistent difference between mountains and molehills. Why the difference ?

Because the education and entrepreneurship Eco-system in independent India was
1. Mug-and-vomit in exams.
2. Do Thy Karma, fight for Thy quota, and exploit Thy permit as licensed.
3. Practice victim-hood and live with rations.
4. Do not question teachers, seniors, bureaucrats, policemen or any other authority figures.
5. Divide against your own people, form identity-based groups.
6. Pull down anyone trying to get up, like the unfunny joke about the Indian crabs.
7. Grease and lubricate the rules and regulations system.

This was not due to our innate inferiority, but a fostered Nehruvian cultural policy. NRN realizes it, he is the product of the same culture.
His sense of inferiority in our society is correct, as seen from his track record. In fact, he worships the protestant work ethic and considers that to be the key to greatness. I agree with him, except that the creative part has nothing to do with a religious work ethic.

While in “phoren” countries, the systems foster and demand this – you better do something new and big. All the time.

Are Indian CS Engineers Untrainable?

Professor Dheeraj Sanghi believes so. He thinks that the reason is copying instead of coding. Not that simple.

Copying code per se is not the real issue. Nowadays experienced developers and lead engineers also do it.

The software world is awash in code. There are places like Stackoveflow and Code project that have snippets, examples, answers to how-to questions on any programming, design or database topic that you want. The technology landscape changes all the time. The real issue is understanding a piece of code, a design issue, a risk or a customer requirement.

The best brains in the world have already solved many problems in great detail. You can immediately access those solutions. The challenge is understanding the solution, where it can be applied, who you can tap for trouble-shooting and how to collaborate “virtually”. It is best practices, code reviews, test packages and algorithm design that are more important than knowing all kinds of sorting, hashing and red and black trees.

Modelling the world is the key. Indian CS education and every other syllabus (like ICSE) is breadth-first in its approach, and wants students to swallow and digest impossible amounts of information. There is no time for such digestion. That is why many resort to copy-paste.

Faculty are too ivory-tower oriented and not many have felt the pain of the business, corporate and start-up world. They are secure in their tenure and never have to account for mistakes and failures in projects and products. Seldom do they have deadlines (except in finishing portions). The culture is hand-me-downs, not engagement with the class. Its very different from the way it is done in UK, US, Europe or Australia. Look at the quality of the online courses and MOOCS from Stanford, Cambridge or Oxford. Much to learn in course design.

Why no activity on this blog?

There may be a few readers wondering if I have gone to sleep. Well, there’s a whole lot of truth to it. There were multiple reasons for this state of affairs.

• I was pre-occupied with a health crisis in the family.
• I was also busy with a project deadline.
• I did not find anything interesting to write about.
• Each post takes a lot of think time and effort. I had a mental block.
• There are not too many people missing the activity 🙂

I am also too lazy to be regular in my posts. I don’t want to be forced into blogging, just because I am blogging! So this kind of inactivity may be normal on this blog. Comments welcome.

Introduction

I grew up as a shy and introverted eldest child. My parents labeled me as muLumaan (tamil – silent one). I was also inarticulate, timid, studious (i.e. a square, as they say in Amerika) and passive. Growing up, I absorbed the argumentative, politically engaged, polemical arm-chair philosophy of my father, the English teacher. Still, I could never argue a point convincingly with him or any other members of my extended family, until I crossed the twenties. Intelligent, only enough to solve exam papers. Occasionally passionate, only to trip up in my thoughts. Generally inadequate, compared to what I wanted to be.

A voracious reader, I absorbed many “philosophies”. Reader’s Digest comes to mind first. What beautiful logic! How much one can do to self-improve! Boy, are the Russians evil or EVIL! This was the 1960s. My favorite aunt cried on hearing about JFK’s death. The Chinese invasion of India in 1962 caused a surge of patriotism and sense of betrayal by a false friend. Pandit Nehru cried when Lata Mangeshkar sang that non-filmy number “Aye mere watan ke logon”. He died of a broken heart soon after.

After the first 3 years of school in the local medium (ಕನ್ನಡ – Kannada), I studied the rest of my life in English. So I developed a ಕನ್ನಡ-my-mother, English-my-father attitude! It mapped physically on to my parents as well! On the one hand, we students had Kumaaravyaasa Bhaaratha, poets D.V.Gundappa, Raajarathnam, Bendre and Kuvempu. On the other, King Lear, Macbeth, Oliver twist. And then there were forms of life, arithmetic and “social studies”. Loved math, liked science, hated civics and geography!

My mother, a carnatic musician, trained me in saraLe varase, alankaaras, geethas, varNas and keerthanas. I had a high, female voice until it broke in my 16th year. Though I consider myself left-brained and logical, music filled the right-brain gap. Whenever I had trouble memorizing, my aunt (also a musician of the same age as my mother), would set the piece to a tune and it would become easy after that! The pleasure I get from good music generally is higher than any other. It has very little egoism in it, unlike things like good grades, promotions, wins in competitions & contests etc. However, the satisfaction from any achievement comes a close second, and it is of course egoistic.

Hindi film music of that time attracted us (me & friends) enormously. This was the last decade of the golden age (1960-69). Again, we had our favorites. Lata was and is a lifelong idol. Rafi’s songs, I could sing almost like him. My brother was a Mukesh fan. And of course we had favorite composers. I liked Dada Burman the most, but Salil Chowdhury and Roshan came close. On the whole, Hindi films and music connected us to the Idea of Hindusthan, quite different from Sunil Khilnani’s IDEA of INDIA. There was a non-anglicized, tradition-loving, soft, indirect, old-world values system in it. How romantic and coquettish the heroines were! And what skills with their eyes, flutters and hand movements! So we used to debate the best of them. Who was the most beautiful – Madhubala, Vyjayanthi Mala or Meena kumari? Who was the best actress, Nutan or Meena kumari? And of course the male triumvirate – Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Devanand. Easy to imagine as Trimurthis!

In my 50s now. Of late, there is some impulse to communicate my thoughts and find like-minded people. I have become a frequent letter writer to some magazines. I relate intimately to thoughts & ideas, both those that I like and those that I dislike. Too many people repeating similar ideas with variations makes me react. Especially in writing. Nowadays, the phenomenon that bothers me most is our (English-educated) ape-like imitation of the Anglo-Saxons. This is a degenerate form of worship of success. We do not delve deeply into the causes of this continuing success, but want short-cuts to the same status for “India”. I’d like you, gentle reader, to join me in exploring our roots, and find rejuvenation there.

Desi Contrarian