>i have not really got into a block. its only that i am using a datacard and it has very limited credit. i am working at a place having a high speed internet, but am too excited with work. so it comes back to the same thing. no internet.

I had to bid aravind bye today. he is leaving for mysore, for a 6 month long training. All the best to him. i could not help but notice that he was slightly agitated. on asking, he told me that he was worried on how he will fair in the IT industry. being a mechi like me, entering Infosys with all those programming languages is naturally stressful on him. but i am sure he will fair pretty well.

i notice that a lot of my batch junta are getting worked up on becoming a programmer and entering the industry. a little insight and i came up with this theory.

i believe computer programmers can be classified into three different groups. the first set of people are the ones who think that the computer in all of its manifestation is above their head, nevertheless they are put at the mercy of the system, the computer has become their feudal overlord, it throws an error if it wants to, it runs the way it wants to and crashes as and when it likes. These people force themselves to accept this supposedly rogue behavior of the computer and put up with all the tantrums. sadly one day it gets too stressful and they have to quit.

The second bunch of people are the moderates, they are a step ahead of the survivors, theycan atlesate predict when a computer might turn rogue, without knowing the actual reason. they have learnt the ability to master the system to an extent, of opening commandlines and typing codes that they memorized during thier training program. They however know perfectly well that they cant master the system. they treat the computer as a peer at times and at other times in a manner similar to how we treat our political leaders. they fawn the systems knowing perfectly well that it will not help them a bit. They atlest are better of than the previous class who get desperate at every error or exception.

The third type i think is the other extreme, they need not necessarily be a lead committer to an open source project, nor do they need to be kickar#e hackkers, but they nevertheless know what they are doing. they have learnt the art of treating the computer as their slave. they know that like feudalism the computer has no option to disobey. it can only have an option of making a mistake, which again most of the time is because of one or more (mis)directives issued by the overlord himself. they have all the time to correct thier mistake. they know to order the computer around and even keep it happy by feeding doughnuts, where as they do not know how to panic when the computer bluescreens. they know that behind the bluescreen there must have been some piece of code that went wrong and even more importantly something that can be corrected.

the computer is a remarkable system it can be an obedient slave when it has to, and when it lacks a master it starts getting bossy. i believe that coding is not a science of logic, rather it is an art that is developed with practice, only some people found out their artistic talent much earlier than the others.
the best cake is baked by a set of hands that knows how to beat the dough in order to make the cake soft.
so to all my techie friends getting worried , dont let the computer intimidate you, instead intimidate it with some daring lines of code and life will become great!!