Verdict in Pakistan

Discipline or Art? # 277

The other day heard the Swedish guy (now works in Silicon valley) who wrote Linux. He said programming is half engineering since it’s like building bridges which should be stable and have to work. Other half is art since you can be creative in designing the bridges and do not have to use standard designs.

E-commerce # 276

They say there were more than a few hundred auto companies around 1920-30s. Now prediction is that only eight or nine global auto manufacturers will survive. Buy only Internet equipment/tool makers and not e-commerce companies. Most of them are going to be wiped out. Bezos? Who knows? As his sales grow, he looses more money. He still can afford to laugh aloud though.

re gymnosophist #272:

The most alarming aspect of the husband-wife teams is the alarming pace at which they produce the little ones :) I agree with you about the various ``snake-oils`` sold to the poor user community over the years. The objective of most of the techniques you mentioned seems to keep the undergrads(and grads) busy in school and feel important when they get out :)

re sadhna #276:

Unfortunately I don`t know of any Pakistani dollar billionaires. If you do(and specially if they happen to be female) please let me know :) So you think software development is a discipline rather than an art form. That debate could take a long time to settle. Personally I think the high employee turnover in the software arena coupled with most designs becoming obsolete the moment they are put into production makes software management one of the most arduous(and thankless) jobs around.

later

-sac

gymnosophist

Oops :-(!!

I heard an expert saying over NPR that the e-commerce business model was not doing terribly well in retailing.

Reasons being 1. Consumer is not captive like a guy who walks into a shop willnot walk out without a purchase just for a few cents, but over the internet, consumer can search the lowest price with great ease so each co has to keep underpricing its rivals, so margins are very slim.

Second: Costs of warehousing/inventory and customer servicing work out the same as normal retailing.

Hmmm... Does Jeff Bezos know?

Sadhana

sac, now lets talk of Pakistani dollar billionaires :-)

Ref sadna #: 274

You ask {Who is Jeff Bezos?}

How can you even ask this question? The man who made the cover of Time, the man who has created a brand new business model by which you don`t need to be profitable in order for the stock price to go up, the man who is going to demolish all the brick-and-mortar storefronts and replace them with internet commerce, the man who founded Amazon.com. That is who Jeff Bezos is.

#270, #272

Not being into dbases, cannot comment on the subject of xx diagrams and yy flowcharts. On the other hand, I can agree, application of software process seems to generally degenerate into meaningless bureacratic procedure to be manipulated or brushed aside as having no relevence to real-world challenges of software projects.

BUT, but, in the last 2 or 3 NASA deep space probes, at least 2 were plagued with software glitches which could have been brought to light a little nearer than many million miles away on Mars at much less than the many million dollars spent. One of the missions suffered from a foot-pound vs metric system mixup!!

(Again, not being part of a husband-and-wife team, its safe to disagree with me :-))

Who is Jeff Bezos?

Sadhana

Sac,

[...``the link that affirms the point I`ve been trying to make in all my messages!!...``]

It is up to you to see the differences between your arguments and syjam’s. no one can force you to believe anything.

[...``and yet when one questions your foundations and faith in secularism that topic is not considered even worthy of debate. What gives my friend? Somebody once remarked that usually underneath a facade of absolute belief lies a raging sea of doubt. Is that the trap you`ve fallen into also...``]

You put forward the argument that secularism should be able to ensure that muslims are reflected in all spheres of life according to their percentage of population. I presented to you the definition of secularism to illustrate that secularism does not have that responsibility. If you choose to see that somehow I have `not considered it worthy of debate`, that again is your prerogative.

The less hyperbole you use in your posts the better the responses you will get on chowk – something to consider. ;-)

Ref sac #: 270

The comment about ER diagrams reminded me of a book on Flowcharting by Ned Chapin. There were several enthusiastic reviews for the book but one comment stopped them all short. It said, ``Flowcharting is for the mentally retarded.``

That comment fully echoes my own belief as far as ER diagrams, Nassi-Schneiderman charts, data-flow diagrams, process flow, HIPO, structured programming, business rules, client-server programming, relational DBMS, Unix, VB, and a host of other snake-oil remedies that have been sold to the user community for the last 50 years.

I am glad nobody can penetrate through my pseudonym to get at my identity. I am likely to be lynched by the husband-and-wife programmer teams from India that seems to have taken over the apartment complex I live in. But, what else can you expect from those whose minds have been warped?

;-)

sac #270

Just a few caveats:

Regarding the Indian Muslim/Muslim Indian question, I want make an interjection which may or may not be relevant. Please concede a distinction between things as they were/`may still be to some extent` and things as we want them to be(which is not an insignificant part of it all). Thats the story of most nascent countries and thats the story of Indian Muslims. Halfway between the way they were and the way they ought to be(which is the most politically advanced, secure and powerful group of Muslims in the world :-)). Isn`t Indian secularism the best way?

Same principle ought be applied to Pakistan, BTW.

About Mahabharatha, you may well be right. However, please remember, there were at least 7? cities of Troy discovered one under another, a number of them seemingly destroyed by fire. Its likely for a city to lose its historical significance over time and after many invasions. The decline of the Harappa and Mohenjodero civilisation is also explained that way, reflected in the declining or degeneration in standards of building and town planning in later structures.

I don`t know enough about the dating of the many Puranas, the dates I have heard were many centuries earlier than the period you mention. Adi Shankaracharya who spearheaded a resurgence in Hindusim himself lived in the 800-1100 AD period. Anyway, I`ll keep a look out for more concrete information.

Well, `mass demonstrations in Pakistan` are being discussed up in the front office :-)

Sadhana

re krashid #270:

You seem to have the opposite experience I presume. Would you care to elaborate? BTW I live on the East coast.

re concerned:

After a dozen e-mails it was finally Sadhna who came up with a relevant submission. All it does is sanctifies my original submission. First my experience was dismissed as equivalent of a cabbie`s and therfore utterly useless. Then I was treated to a thorough dissection of my arguments proving how cluttered my thinking process was in regard to the joys of secularism and the inherent contradictions of my statements. We`ve finally come to the point where I am being giving a lesson in the fundamentals of various ``isms``. I presume my ``inciteful`` comment on mental gymnastics was really taken to heart by you. But isn`t that all you`ve done so far and finally ended up thanking Sadhna for providing the link that affirms the point I`ve been trying to make in all my messages!!

This is exactly the behaviour you guys complain about when you question Pakistani actions on the basis of religion. Their attitudes are dismissed as illogical and fanatical(what the sage in residence Sadhna calls the ``Mughal`` syndrome :)) and yet when one questions your foundations and faith in secularism that topic is not considered even worthy of debate. What gives my friend? Somebody once remarked that usually underneath a facade of absolute belief lies a raging sea of doubt. Is that the trap you`ve fallen into also?

I`ll let you have the last word on this one with the hope that the next time we lock horns its in a spirit of goodwill and not one-uppance.

re gymnosophist #264 and sadhna`s link:

These thoughts echo what is right now the most fashionable theory to explain the differences in success levels of various ethnicities and countries. ``CULTURE`` seems to be the operative word of the day. Things like low-trust and high-trust cultures seem to be able to explain for instance the continued prosperity of the west and the relative poverty of the east. Academics like Samuel Huntington are the leading proponents of these ideas. I do think that cultural differences do make an important difference in the makeup of a certain society but it is only one component of a very complex phenomenon. For instance(and I know this is a bad one) why is it that a Hindu majority India was ruled for a thousand years by the largely ferocious and barbaric tribes of Islam? Why did the Hindu culture react so benignly to a largely foreign and alien civilization?

re sadna:

``BTW, what has any military government done for Pakistan that warrants their not being put into orbit, along with others in that rocket?``

Brilliant question and for once I am stumped. Must be something about men in uniform :)

I promised to post something about the Mahabharta. Turns out a certain gentleman by the name of Prof. B.B. Lal dug up the site of the Kauravas` capital Hastinapura as well as Indraprastha in the late sixties. He thinks that the events described in the Mahabharta if they happened did so about 1300 years ago. He does not provide any conclusive evidence that the events described actually transpired. However the mere fact that all the sites mentioned in the Mahabharta were in existence at the same time sharing the same material culture is circumstantial evidence of a kind. However here is what I found most fascinating. There were no majestic palaces,gates or towers as described in the text. Most structures in the dug up sites were mud-bricked. All they had were copper and iron implements and a few tools made of bone and absolutely no MARBLE. No human figures on the pottery and no trompe l`oeil that fooled Duryodhana!! Here is a beautiful quote that about sums it all up.

``The Indraprastha of the Mahabharta was basically created by the pen of a poet and destroyed by the trowel of an archaeologist``.

later

-sac

P.S: thanks for explaining software process level V. Seems pretty geeky :) I remember 3 days into my first job asking my manager for an ER diagram in order to make a minor modification to the database. He laughed and said ``ER diagrams? We don`t use them here and I doubt if you`ll ever need them on the street``. He was right of course. Needless to say, for the remainder of my stay at the job all arguments with me generally ended with the opposition saying ``Aren`t you the ER diagram guy?`` :). BTW the manager`s name was a certain Jeff Bezos.

Very interesting remark.

``I have not met a biased caucasian``

Where do you live sac.

dear sadhana,

thank you for taking time to search chowk archives. i had considered it initially, but decided not to bother - in the belief that it would be discounted by sac.

the paucity of muslim indians on chowk can partly be attributed to the reasons mentioned by syjam, i believe. sometime back i visited the cnn board and noticed two muslim indians (one from iit) arguing with the pakistanis about similar issues. needless to say, the pakistanis appeared shocked in disbelief!

regards

sac #265:

vitriol in most of my post? Oh well...

[``...If 20% people in my company like chia-pets and only 2% of the executive ranks like chia-pets then obviously the company is biased against chia-pets...``]

so you are suggesting that the bombay film industry is biased against non-muslims. ok.

[``...I am simply pointing out that their relative absence from most facets of Indian society is something to be thought about and simply not pushed away under the rug...``]

no one said things should be pushed under the rug. By all means `think` about it. but do not let the thinking be limited to indulging in portraying that the reason is institutionalized discrimination. you could also resist from issuing provocative statements like `pakistani muslims have all the opportunities for advancement in life whereas indian muslims do not, and therefore, india has sham secularism`. that can not be described as `thinking`.

[``...If secularism works so well as a system of resolving disputes maybe that is something it should be able to resolve also. Wouldn`t you agree?...``]

I would not. Allow me to present the definition of secularism from dictionary.com -

sec u lar ism

n.

1. Religious skepticism or indifference.

2. The view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public education.

as you can see, secularism is not burdened with ensuring that each religion gets a representation in all spheres of life according to the percentage of people practicing it.

In contrast, please consider the following

so cial ism

n.

a. A social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community.

b. The theory or practice of those who support such a social system.

The building of the material base for communism under the dictatorship of the proletariat in Marxist-Leninist theory.

communism Com``mu *nism , n. [F. communisme, fr. commun common.] A scheme of equalizing the social conditions of life; specifically, a scheme which contemplates the abolition of inequalities in the possession of property, as by distributing all wealth equally to all, or by holding all wealth in common for the equal use and advantage of all.

Note: At different times, and in different countries, various schemes pertaining to socialism in government and the conditions of domestic life, as well as in the distribution of wealth, have been called communism

sac #265

concerned, gymnosophist, shankar

The paucity of Indian Muslims on this forum gives us a signal, too, though I`m not sure what exactly. Anyway, I looked up the discussion on Prof B. Ahmad`s thread and found a reply from syjam relating her perspective, as concerned was mentioning.

http://www.chowk.com/bin/showr.cgi?f=bahmad_feb0400&n=230#reply251

A few others also had insights into this issue, if I remember correctly.

sac, I actually thought the Pakistani common man was too busy watching Haseena Moin`s and other writers` Pak TV plays. Those plays have this kind of hynotic quality :-), I had almost decided that was it.

BTW, what has any military government done for Pakistan that warrants their not being put into orbit, along with others in that rocket?

Level V: Part of a `` model for judging the maturity of the software processes of an organization, etc etc`` something like ISO standards. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/cmm.html

Basically some practices are recommended and some metrics collected to improve predictability of software quality. Level V is like Nirvana, even remaining in it is not easy. Some organizations in India got themselves evaluated in the early days when world reputations had yet to be made. In the organization I knew back in India with Level V, its lowly developers seemed unaware of the relevant jargon compared to us lowly developers, striving for the same, which was to us a reason to wonder.

Sadhana

re concerned #261:

I have obviously seriously rubbed you the wrong way. So let me continue. Leaving aside the vitriol in most of your post, I`ll concentrate on the crux of the matter. Lets take your example

``Lets see - If 20% of the people in my company start wearing blue shirts, you would argue that unless the number of people in the executive management team wearing blue shirts reaches 20%,there must be some kind of discrimination going on!``

If 20% people in my company like chia-pets and only 2% of the executive ranks like chia-pets then obviously the company is biased against chia-pets. The problems with such comparisons is that they fail to distinguish between the mundane and the pertinent. Its the same argument corporations put forward when confronted with the lack of women or minorities in their workforces or the composition of their boards. They bemoan the lack of qualified applicants and their inability to lower their standards in order to conform to societal guidelines. What gets lost in the whole debate is why is there a paucity of ``qualified`` applicants? Is the system somehow rigged?

Taking an example from the US, I haven`t come across a single caucasian that I can accuse of racism. And yet one asks why is there a lack of minorities in the professional cadres? Equivalently I am not accusing the ordinary non-Muslim Indian of being biased towards Muslims. I am simply pointing out that their relative absence from most facets of Indian society is something to be thought about and simply not pushed away under the rug. My earlier post about the few numbers of Indian Muslims in institutions of higher learning being one such example. If secularism works so well as a system of resolving disputes maybe that is something it should be able to resolve also. Wouldn`t you agree?

re Shankar #262:

Your question reminds me of the fate that befell one of Urdu`s most celebrated authors Ahmed Ali. He was a professor somewhere in Delhi when partition happened. Unfortunately he happened to be visiting China at the time. He wanted to go back to Delhi but the Indian authorities told him explicitly to go to Pakistan since he was a Muslim and they couldn`t guarantee his safety in Delhi. He spent the rest of his life in Karachi cursing Pakistan and its decadent society!! A lot of Muslims never bought the idea of Pakistan. Economic opportunities alone are not a determinant factor in deciding to move elsewhere. To ask you a question in a similar vein why is it that the few Indian Muslims who happen to make it to the west feel more kinship with their brethren from Pakistan or Bangladesh? And why don`t all the Hindus left over in Pakistan(there are about half a million or so mainly in Sindh) move over to India? I am sure the crazy Muslim fundamentalists in Pakistan would be more than happy to let them go.

re sadna:

You absolutely read my mind. My submission to chowk(about a month ago and still not published. The chowk editorial borad table has probably bought king Arthur`s table from ebay :)) talked about the relative inaction of the common man as Pakistan slips deeper and deeper into a black hole. As I pointed out earlier the elite in Pakistan has a monopoly on leadership and this leadership leaves much to be desired. The common man without able leadership doesn`t protest much. I remember in Zia`s time there were processions by women against the ``hudood`` laws led mostly by the women of the elite. These women were conveniently branded as sluts by the government and the religious orthodoxy. Ironically though this is the major reason every government has to pander to the fanatics. They are the only ones with the street power to create a ruckus. The common man is too busy watching Zee TV!!

I did find something very interesting about the historical origins of the Mahabharta. Will post it over the weekend.

later

-sac

P.S: What is software process level V?

Ref sac #: 252

You say {My previous post was intended to point out the knee-jerk reaction that comes out of most Indians when their country`s secular credentials are questioned in even a mild manner....Examples of prominent Muslim movie stars or wealthy people are shown as examples of self-evident truths. What the debate forgets to mention is the state of an overwhelming minority paying the price for the ``transgressions`` committed by its ancestors. I have studied at three major institutions in the US and I have friends in almost all of the major schools around. We often talk about the brilliant academics and students of Indian origin we`ve come across and yet there is a glaring absence of Indian Muslims amongst the lot. The occasional Muslim one does come across is a very strange species. In general jovial and extroverted, in the company of other Indians he becomes quiet almost diminshed in stature. I do realize that I am making a very sweeping generalization here but can somebody throw some light on this subject? One Indian Muslim friend of mine upon incessant pestering talked about the constant microscope Muslims are under in India for their public behaviour. This microscope becomes even more pronounced when the Pakistani cricket team takes on the Indians. The ghetto mentality of Indian Muslims is blamed for all the ills that faces them in India. And then I am blamed for comparing them to blacks in America???}

How come you don`t have problems in Kerala where the Muslims constitute a 25%+ population,have quite a proud tradition of being independent, and have successfully migrated -- despite in several instances a lack of academic qualifications -- to the Middle East and carved out a nice life for themselves? They have strong political leadership in their community, actively take part in the state`s politics, and get into professional colleges probably in the same proportion as their population is to overall Kerala population. One thing going for them is that they were never the ruling class, did not depend on undeserved handouts from a Muslim king, and always had to work their butt off. You compare that to anyone with a sense of grievance that the British deprived them of their kingdom, that the world owes them a living. And if you take the converts who were the dispossessed among the Hindus, the lowest on the totem pole, well, they have brought the Hindu fatalistic approach to life that is amplified weekly by the local Imam that Allah will provide, if not in this life, most certainly in the next.

Talking anecdotally, I was looking at some photos taken by friends who are doctors who had gone to the Philippines for taking the ECFMG exam. I was struck by a Chinese girl in the group (jealous that in three days of busy all-day exams they were able to find a local girl to go out with them in the evening!) and asked how they met her. The guys casually said she is Indian and from Calcutta and was taking the exam with them. From the photos, it was obvious she was having a good time with all the other Indian guys and girls. I guess I don`t have to remind you that the Chinese beat the crap out of us in 1962. No one seemed to be holding it against the girl.

Even talking today to a friend`s son, I asked him what happened to his classmate in engineering who is a Muslim girl. He replied that she is married and has a kid. This guy is out here working for Cisco. And you know what they say about any engineer working for Ciso becoming a millionaire in 5 years. Why didn`t the Muslim girl do it? Why did she get married right out of college and start a family? I can show you any number of middle-class Indian (Hindu) women who get a job with a body shop and show up in the US on an H-1 visa. For that matter, how many Chinese girls show up here for higher studies?

People have got to set themselves ambitious goals. Legend has it that Sir Sivaswamy Iyer, a judge on the Indian Supreme Court under the British, studied under a streetlamp as a child.

Speaking anecdotally, I knew a Brahmin widow in my hometown with 5 daughters and one son who was employed as a clerk in the state government. The family had to live on the son`s income and he struggled mightily to get his sisters married off. In his situation, he could not possibly dream of marrying his sisters off to anyone who is higher up in the economic ladder. The first sister married a railway worker and the second a schoolteacher. These two women had one child each (fortunately for them, boys) when the government was pushing a two-child limit for families for population control. From their own experience, they realized they could not, or did not want to, raise more than one child. These two boys (a couple of years apart) managed to get into engineering colleges. The first went to a state school in his hometown so the tuition was low and he didn`t have to live in a dorm. The second was allocated a seat in a private engineering college outside his hometown (out of the state`s quota of seats). He complained that this was the government`s way of imposing a hardship on him, a Brahmin, since the tuition was much higher and he would in addition have to stay in the dorm. The boy went looking for support and a retired childless man agreed to pay some amount of support so that this boy could finish college. Today, both the guys work in the US as computer programmers. From a rinky-dink little town in India, with an education not obtained at the famous IITs, these boys have raised themselves up by their bootstraps into above-average economic status in the US itself. Tell me, is it because they were Brahmins, is it because the government aided them, or is it because they had the ambition to better themselves economically? (Please don`t attribute their innate intelligence, which certainly helped a great deal, to their being Brahmins!)

Can the Indian government do more to help its citizens? Yes.

Will it? No, in all probability.

Do North Indian Muslims face subtle discrimination? Most likely, yes, from individuals.

Is discrimination institutionalized? No.

Can Muslims do anything to improve their lot? Yes. Go to schools and start learning. If it means not learning the Qur`an, that is a sacrifice they have to make. (Ask all those Brahmins on the Chowk how much of their Vedas they can recite. It is their DUTY to learn the Vedas.)

Should India give up its nukes and missiles so that another couple of billion dollars will be available for education? It is not going to happen.

Should India give up Kashmir so that more money will be available for social programs? Another non-starter.

Mc Gupta#251

I read the article with interest.

It is also called you scratch my back and I scratch yours.

Thugs together for common purpose.