Let us demystify some of the myths that shrouds Computer Science and Programming.

Myth #1: Coding is like driving a car. You need a driver, not a mechanical engineer. For God's sake NO. Coding IS designing a car. Try writing a compiler, web server, OS. Or for that matter try writing a good small application. How about writing the software that executes your bank transactions, stock trades, auto pilots, cruise control, handles insurance claims ? Is that like driving a car ? You need qualified people for creating these. If you appoint just drivers you will get icicidirect and citibank like software.

A sub-myth is that the above myth is true for only Indian IT service companies. A lot of Indian services companies have clients from banking, insurance, automobiles, aircraft design. If everything else is equal any recruiter in Indian IT company will choose a CS grad to a non CS grad. The problem is there aren't enough good people with CS degrees. Sometimes brilliant people with non-CS degrees are better than a stupid CS-degree holder. So changing the requirement is not an indication that the job can be done by anyone. It is just an indication that the company need to increase its revenues. Hiring more people is one of the ways to do it. So they just changed the requirement.

Rarely will these people create any software of importance in their lifetime. They may manage others who do it, but never themselves. The companies know it, the people who get hired like that know it. So that is the hurry in moving higher in the management ladder. So you see a bloated middle management in most services companies. If some do create software of importance, it is because by that time they have learnt so much about computer science that they are qualified like a CS guy to do it. To continue the driver analogy, they hire drivers, a lot of them learn to become auto mechanics, rarely will they understand aerodynamic design but they know how to fix a starter trouble. A countable number will move further to be equal to mechanical engineers. But they would have struggled less and enjoyed much if they chose mechanical engineering as their field. (or computer science in our coding case).

Myth #2: Anyone can do coding. Well for that matter any one can become Einstein. All of us are born equal, No ? Try it.

Myth #3: What you study in college is not important. Even going to college is not important. You can still code.
Another variation of this
Myth #3: You can learn computer science in part time NIIT classes. Learn ECE/EEE/Mech/ Civil/Industrial/Mining/D.F.T in college and computer science in NIIT. You will be a master in 2 subjects.
There are some exceptions. But remember they are exceptions. They would have done it anyway. If these NIIT educated guys learn half about computers as a self learned auto mechanic learns about his car then they got what they paid for. It is just that. Well if you think about getting a degree in some other branch and then become a master in both CS and your branch, well I will say Best of Luck. You may end up being a jack of both or may be master only in CS. Why not just do CS then ?

Myth #4 : Computer Science is all about coding. No, it is not. Even computer engineering or for that matter software engineering is not just about coding. Anyone who know his CS will vouch for it.

Myth #5 : Learning Computers is like learning science/engineering. The word computer science or computer engineering is usually created by the departments. The study can never classified as such. It is not a science as in Physics, not engineering as mechanical. It is just part of both. But it is also about art. Lot of difference between good and bad software, high performance and useless hardware will be from the arts part. This is one of the reasons for so many geeks in this field.

Though my profile says I live in Gainesville, FL, I spend a fair amount of time in the Matheson Reading Room of Emory University. The news today is the famous Salman Rushdie (or should I say infamous?) is joining the Emory faculty as professor in English department. I am no fan of his books. But I may attend one of his talks. It could be interesting, especially the Q&As, considering the huge Pakistani population in Emory. Let us see. (No, it is not for the hope that Padma Lakshmi may attend the talk.)

Work till 4 am on thursday night, Sleep for 3 hrs, Get up and work out, Attend a marathon meeting for 3 hours which exposes you have a long way to go, Understand your procrastination is not going to help you, Attend a lecture on greedy approximations most of which is bouncers in the best and beamers in the worst, Realize it is weekend already, Boose and sleep like a log.

Oh, I missed this. Speaking about procrastination, search about good procrastination and realize there is something like that. Check out Paul Graham's article about Good and Bad Procrastination. That is something to feel good about. Isn't it ? So Blog about it !

Thiagarajar College of Engineering also known as "mottai arasar" college is where I spent 4 good years of my undergraduate days.** Our college is preparing for its Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2007-2008. As part of the preparation, the correspondent, the principal and the registrar were in Atlanta to meet some alumni. About 11 of us attended the alumni meet. Some of the alumni were even from 1979 batch. I was surprised to see such enthusiastic response from people who finished so many years back. The enthusiasm of the organizers was infectious. They did a great job by organizing this meet.

The principal gave a wonderful presentation about our college and where it stands now. 7 years doesn't seem too long. But I was able to see that the college has transformed itself totally in these 7 years. All for good. Some of the good things that I observed about the college.

• The emphasis is shifting towards research. Well atleast in the ECE, Mech and EEE departments. The young departments, like CS, are yet to follow. I found the collaborations in International virtual lab really interesting.

• The attitude of the administration is totally different now. In the current principal the college has found a man with a vision. This surely is going to help. For e.g.: They are visiting US universities and analyzing how to improve our college, Starting from simple things like having a t-shirt for TCE to having a separate program administration type of department to market the college. (T-shirts are banned in college now as it is in most of Anna Universities' affiliated colleges, but they are contemplating about lifting the ban)

• The infrastructure, industry cooperation, everything seems to be improving. The Motorola’s R&D center in campus seems to be great idea.

With all the good points listed it would be biased if I don't list the negatives.

• The first and foremost, our college was not ranked in the outlook's survey of India's best engineering colleges. The principal himself acknowledged this and said they are planning to participate in next year's survey. If Karunya, SSN and Amrita colleges are ranked and we are not ranked it won't look good. Though the ranking methodology is not so great, from the college's perspective it is good to be in the ranking than out of it. Especially when we are pretty close to PSG on all the criteria listed and PSG is listed at 23, it makes a lot of sense to go for it.

• Too few faculties with PhDs. There seems to be an effort to push the existing faculty to go for the PhD. But it may just improve the quantity rather than quality. They should target hiring PhDs. Attractive pay packages and benefits should do the job.

• Too few students go for higher studies. In fact the principal didn't list the numbers. The college can never be considered a research institution if it is not motivating people for higher studies. There could be multiple reasons behind it. Some key reasons could be

1. The student population in our college is predominantly from rural areas. So getting a job is mostly the primary goal when students enter college.
2. Lack of motivation due to high paying jobs. (I don't believe this myself, people from madras leave high paying jobs to join ms/Phd)
3. Lack of guidance in terms of career options, advantages in doing higher studies etc.
   

• No active fund raising efforts. Even in the silver jubilee year the college is still not having a fund raising effort. From the reactions, I understand they are not very comfortable with it. This mindset should change and the college should seriously consider raising funds from Alumni.

Negatives 1, 2, 4 are administrative issues. For negative 3, I strongly believe the main reasons are the initial goal and the lack of guidance. I have some ideas to solve them. I know there exists a booklet in SVCE which jots down the steps to follow from first year to the day you land in a US university. It includes everything from FAQs about marks in semester exams, preparing undergrad level papers, GRE/GMAT/TOEFL preparations, application process, funding process, travel agent numbers, things to bring to US, EVERYTHING. If you get that book in first year, follow it, then you should land in a US university for MS/Phd without much of a problem.

I am planning to prepare one such booklet for our college. Of course, I am going to take help from a few others. A lot of info is available in the net. But the consolidation is going to take some effort. I would love to get questions from others to add to the booklet. If you happen to read this post and have tips /questions about the booklet send me an e-mail or leave a comment.

More photos of the alumni meet can be found in TCE Atlanta Alumni site.

** I carefully avoided the word "studied" in that first sentence :-)

This is one of the things I don't understand. If appendix and toncils are vestigial organs and Darwin's theory holds, then what is the purpose for facial hair ?

There are some cosmetic reasons for Sri Sri Ravishankar, kalki avatar and other self proclaimed god men.

It really helps Gillette to beat Moore's law with respect to razor blades. I mean, don't these guys double the blades every year. I cannot wait to see that 10 blade razor. I hear they are waiting for the holiday season.

It helps Saeed Anwar make a come back, and Inzamam win matches. (How come nobody suggested this to Ganguly ?)

It helps the new desi grad students and bored to death s/w engineers to make a statement(!) when they grow their first goatie immediately after landing in U.S.

But are these things considered in evolution ? If the evolution is taking place slowly then Pakistan, Bangladesh et al are still very backward. We are still an evolving country. China appears to be the only evolved place. I am serious. My department has two chinese guys for every non-chinese around. Have I ever seen one with a beard ? All of them are grad students. Someone should be lazy and should forget to shave, right ? I have seen no one, not one single person with a beard. Ok, I have seen those kung-fu movies with that old chinese guy with a long goatie and the ponytail and , but that is ancient china. They have evolved NOW. I can't wait to see the headlines why china is more evolved than India, how India will be more evolved soon, and how all Indians won't have facial hair by 2030. It will be great if some of my handful of readers pass this on to CNN-IBN or rediff !