The Code Search and GAWK

The latest word on the wire is the release of yet another Google product (not to mention it searches) called Google Code Search.

Basically this a search engine specifically to search in the code snippets (full programs also for that matter). “Search public source code” goes the tagline. This may be of very great interest to the software industry as someone has said that 50 percent of the code we use today is the result “Ctrl+C” and “Ctrl+V” and then some modifications are done.

Anyway the code search will be definite boost for the open source community and the students alike. It will help students finish their project on time and allow the Open Source people to stop themselves from endlessly making copies of the same app.

Anyway today was a rather uneventful day. Spent the whole day downloading the material for Windows Exchange Server and IDE for Python (I’m a snake charmer now!).Seems that I am going to be an expert in the field of “GAWK”! I have the manual for GAWK and an implementation of GAWK for windows.

Someone should say something…

Everyday one can see the media shouting about one thing or the other; sometime it’s about
the latest scoop they have or it’s the new policy that has come out to protect the so called underprivileged and the underrepresented.

Never in my life have I seen any politician (his cast doesn’t matter) coming out against
these topics in open. All they do is sit back and let the Ass-holes (sorry for the expression) run the show.

Recently I started reading “Falling Over Backwards” by “Arun Shourie”. I must say that do
this day I was largely ignorant about the ways and means the “Mandal” commission had employed to reach the magical figure of 27.5% reservations and the way the Constitution was twisted by adding or removing (as the times required!) a single word, maybe a line or sometimes a whole section or paragraph. I had never known of the numerous cases wherein the courts had given a verdict so as to strike down a proposal or an action authorized by a Government (most of the times State Govt. and sometimes the Central Govt.) but the political parties joined together to change the law itself so that the new law was more
supportive to the previous decision.

The best part is that it didn’t stop there only. They (read Politicians) even went all out to
make sure that the law they passed to support the actions they had authorized before the law existed was put into such a place in constitution where it could not be touched or be commented upon by the Supreme Court.

The current scenario is such that a person who has more muscle power, more money and more
political power is enjoying the benefits of Reservation! Why? The question is completely useless if anyone knows what India stands for. Normally in a democratic country there as one law for all (few exceptions of religious issues like marriage and such) and everyone has to abide by that law. But in India the law changes by the minute as the politicians’ desire. When India gained independence the lawmakers did the terrible mistake of copying the constitution instead or framing a new constitution from scratch. India was a new country with its own set of problems to be addressed. As is with any patchwork the constitution had many loopholes waiting to be exploited by someone who knew how to work the system.

The very important thing the constitution makers forgot was the power to modify the constitution was entirely with the legislature. The same people who get elected and get to have a say in the assembly. They had made judiciary to see that that law that was made by the legislature was properly implemented. But the left a serious flaw there. The legislature got the whole and sole rights to the constitutional amendments and thus no one could stop it if it wanted to make any stand or belief a law.

Of course the framers could not have simply taken away the right to modify the constitution but what they could have done was that every amendment that was going to materialize had to be authorized by the judiciary. But alas! They didn’t do it and nobody after them required it (except for the general public).

And we thought we were living in a free country. Where is the freedom? The basic question that
remains to be answered is that the politics today has become hereditary. The father dies and the son takes over. In case there is no son then some of the kith and kin will take over. Take congress for example, Rahul Gandhi may be very good leader and it may happen that over the course of time he actually does some good to nation. But that doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t have to go through all the hardships his father or the founder of Congress went
through. The dynasty system was thought to have been abolished in India with the
fall of “Moughal” empire. During the colonial rule the governing officials did not come out of a single dynasty. But after the British left after partitioning India, we have relapsed back into the old system which we loved so much. The plain old Dynasty system!