Yesterday was India MVP day - all the MVPs (at least those who could make it) came together for a day and a half of... at least it was rather different from the 'death by powerpoint', we were jumping of cliffs, climbing tress, walking tight ropes, nearly drowning ourselves with rafts we built by hand. And it was rather nice to be in a rather high IQ group. The man next to me was an old UNIX hacker who he now the director of his own company, the other guy is a senior project manager at another firm and so on... its good to be young among them - I was learning, a lot.

A lot of things running through my mind. many which will not matter to most. Ken Thompson co-creator of C and Unix has retired from Bell Labs to teach flying full time. He was one of the greatest minds that computing ever had and he left us and moved on, so silently  http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/ken/ .
Rob Pike left Bell Labs to join Google. Feels like the company of the old has finally come to wither. 

I am very excited at the thought of the implementation of yield and anonymous functions in the new C# language features. Also am a little stumped by Redmond's kung fu with managed c++ and the mixing of managed and unmanaged code. The way the old C runtime can co-execute with the CLR in the same app is a little staggering. 

I am considering writing a little engine to help me add to the pensieve and maybe expose an RSS feed. I have this general guilt about not adding to my DDL implementation which I am hoping to finally release as a usable package.

Something is throbbing deep in my head and after being an 'IT professional' for while now I have a general feeling that this is unfair, because the little that was left of the gray-matter largely refuses to work.

Somethings on my mind:

• Its not a bug its a creature ... err feature
• Don Box's blog http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/dbox/
• RSS feeds are nice things
• Iteroperability is like an offering for peace, it works only as long as both parties care enough about it.
• Dialectic - theory of Ideas - Plato
• 1984 - Orwell
• if a function does not fit on the screen, its probably buggy

There has been a lot of interesting activity these days on the communities front. A lot of user groups are popping up all over the country. Ones like at Bangalore are bursting at their seams with > 1200 members in the past 7 months. This is the Bangalore UG  http://groups.msn.com/bdotnet , if you for near Banglore, take a look. We also have a small user group at Cochin @ http://groups.msn.com/cochindotnet , maybe the first of its kind in those parts. This is the MSDN India homepage http://www.microsoft.com/india/msdn/ .

I am now a Microsoft MVP for .Net. Which means that I get to have an online profile at MSDN India. Mine is here http://www.microsoft.com/india/mvp/indiamvp.aspx#RoshanJames . Also as a consequence I have (rather grudgingly) put up my picture (yes, the bastion has fallen) and my resume online, at my own insistence. 

You get to meet some amazing people. Kumar Gaurav Khanna is probably one of India's top MVPs, take a look at his homepage here http://www.wintoolzone.com/  . Mr Jayakrishnan K, probably my only mentor and hacker guru is now an MVP for c++/mfc  http://www.xtendtech.com/  . Pooja is now an MVP too, this her homepage http://www34.brinkster.com/mpooja/. This is the homepage of Deepak Gulati, http://www.winisp.net/deepak/ , Deepak is Microsoft community specialist for India, which means he is nice person to know and we get to badger him for a lot of our annoyances :) 

I need to be considering college a little more seriously if I am ever going to be going to college after this. This is an interesting site http://www.sscli.net/ , its a community page for Rotor (the SSCLI) created by folk at MS and Cornell university. Some time soon I hope to have a project of mine up there. 

Did anyone wonder why this page is titled pensieve? Any one reading Harry Potter will know... I think its such a nice useful word.

Finally I just have to have a link to this man's blog: http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/activity-log.php Miguel de Icaza. 

Rosh

Hi, 

I wonder why I code, or if I do code at all. I am working now - for one of the better 'software companies' of India. I graduated in Sept 2002 and had a 2 month 'training' at Chennai after which I am now working at Bangalore. According to most in the company I am lucky to be here. Here I am assigned to be working on .Net, the company's Microsoft team. Enter the world of the 'developer' :

Most of my friends these days are looking for jobs. Some better than the ones they have. I am wondering about coding and the way people around me adapt to their change and circumvent their mountains. For some I am lucky to be where I am.

Somethings on my mind :

• To understand recursion you must first understand recursion.
• Will code for food...
• Never underestimate the stupidity of people 
• "Please accept it in the spirit in which it's offered. -rob"
• Freedom
  

Roshan James

Hi,

    This a little addition to the below, I still do like programming... but sometimes there are things that make you wonder. I the recent past spent an increasingly larger time wondering if the code-liberalization-stereotype groups and the existing mass of the commercial groups would ever come to terms with each other. I don't know, and maybe cant seem to fully understand what brought about the sudden lack of respect for a fellow programmer, even if he belongs to a different platform or uses different tools. Is genius measured with such things ?

    What is the curiosity that causes people to write code ? Can all programmers, all real programmers, actually get along irrespective of mad men preaching and propagandas ? I am, in spirit, an old Lloyd Blankenship a.k.a. the Mentor definition hacker, albeit not a guru for the levels of anyone worthy of those terms, but in spirit yes. And I still believe what he said 'after all, we are all the same'. Do take a look at the hacker manifesto if you have never seen it.

    As far as coding goes... these days I have taken a liking for Ruby... nice new language (actually its been around for a while), worth a look. I never went much further with Limbo or Euphoria. I did majorly dig C#. Got onto the .Net bandwagon and I must say it has been worth it. For those of you who care for opinion, I think Microsoft has got it right this time.. this is the future guys, call it what you will, there is no escaping it. Also developing at interest in  IL, that is the Intermediate Language, the assembler like thing, used in the .Net framework. Anyone out there who cares ?

    I just completed my seventh semester in college, that means 8th, final, semester left to go. Future seems hazy.. :) hasn't it always.

Roshan James

Hi,

I like programming. Its one of the few things I have had for a friend... who watched my back and sanity more times than I can remember.
    I am quite comfortable with my 86-586Asm, C/C++/VC++. There are a few other languages/systems I have worked with (just in case anyone is interested in working with me on some program), take a look at these and let me if we can put together something. Most of the stuff below I know only in part.. either cause I forgot their nuances or that I hadn't really dug into them.
:    TCL, JavaScript, Prolog, SQL (a shameful amount).

    If there is anyone out there who might know C# , Limbo , Euphoria or Ampl do get in touch with me. I am developing a liking for these languages (some to the extend I like my cpp and asm) and would like someone to work with. And please any old asm hands out there... they are a rare and dying breed.

    I have been considering putting up some code snippets and maybe a tute or two about program structuring and approach... I believe I haven't seen any that address what happens to a programmer after he maxes out on his code limit... for me its about 30k lines... after that point my code scrambles my sanity. It is a design issue I know, but design is often possible only when you can foresee things. This is not case when its you alone or a small group working incrementally on a app.

     We all have our fears. You know a few down the line I hope that computing as I loved it exists. As more and more university projects  are either elementary apps or purely code that is taken from the increasingly large and popularized code-base from the code-liberalization community. This does seem to making anyone want to code here anymore or to find out how a thing works by tinkering with it... . A hacker I know compared it to the construction industry. One architect to draw out the plans and the main bulk of people mix cement and carry bricks.

Click here for some bits of coding I have done - you may contact me for source if you wish to study or continue on them. I might put up sources if an particular thing has been asked for often enough.

More to 'reality'

    I am Roshan James a.k.a. Spark. I am (I think I am) studying to get a BTech in Comp Engg from Model Engg College. Right now, May 23rd 2002 , I am 6th Sem. guy at Model. Get in touch with me at :