Month: June 2016

iPhones

Recently, I learned programming for the iPhone, using Apple’s new programming language called “Swift”. To me, it looks like after Steve Jobs, Apple just doesn’t have any vision or control left.  The programming language, Swift, reminded me of another programming language called Ada.  Like Ada, Swift has everything but the kitchen sink.  (On second thoughts, … Continue reading “iPhones”

Recently, I learned programming for the iPhone, using Apple’s new programming language called “Swift”.

To me, it looks like after Steve Jobs, Apple just doesn’t have any vision or control left.  The programming language, Swift, reminded me of another programming language called Ada.  Like Ada, Swift has everything but the kitchen sink.  (On second thoughts, maybe there _is_ a kitchen sink somewhere in there, I don’t know the complete language yet 🙂 )  Like Ada, Swift is one of those _have to_ learn languages.  If you want to program iPhones, you have to learn Swift.  If you wanted to program for Defense Department, you had to learn Ada.  This forced learning by the US DoD did not save Ada from rapid demise.  (By contrast, Android picked a slick programming language already popular, Java.)

Good programming languages do not include every feature available in the technology – the designers’ brilliance shines through in deciding what features to include and how to combine them.  Swift designers had a lot of knowledge, but no sharpness at all – they just couldn’t decide what to leave behind.

This shoddy approach extends to the development environment.  I have worked in a lot of development environments, and have never seen anything as shoddy as Apple’s development environment Xcode.

My take – Apple has no good leadership anymore, the company is going down the tubes.  Modi government I think just gave them a lifeline, but China appears rather angry at them, just the Indian market might not be enough to keep this lost company churning.

Unit Birthday and Anniversary Celebrations

I was putting up a post on a friend’s Facebook wall to wish him a happy birthday when I realized how impersonal and automated the whole process has become. Facebook reminds me that it is so and so’s birthday and would I like to wish him? It then directs me to the appropriate person’s wall … Continue reading “Unit Birthday and Anniversary Celebrations”

I was putting up a post on a friend’s Facebook wall to wish him a happy birthday when I realized how impersonal and automated the whole process has become. Facebook reminds me that it is so and so’s birthday and would I like to wish him? It then directs me to the appropriate person’s wall and prompts me to type a message. My mobile keyboard remembers the appropriate word sequence once I type ‘Happy’, and all I have to do is accept the complete sentence followed by my friend’s name to make it look personal.

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The whole system reminded me of a CO who insisted that every bachelor on his birthday and every married officer on his anniversary must get a Unit sponsored gift. Most of the time people already have everything they needed and a gift is therefore something useless.

The Adjutant and the rest of the Unit Officers came out with a solution to keep the CO happy. On every occasion they pooled the money (usually deducted from the ‘Tea Club’ account) and gave the concerned Officer a lump sum of money to do what he felt like (something like a kitty) and at the evening party a neatly wrapped box with some trash was handed over to the Officer.

The CO was happy because he was under the impression that the Officer was getting something he liked or desired to have and everybody else was happy since no nerve racking brainstorming or shopping was involved. The Officer was happy because he had some extra spending money… of course I wondered what would happen to the Adjutant if the CO ever found out!!