The changing face of Linux.Ars

So the past several weeks have seen a cooling of interest in Linux.Ars from many #linux folks; in particular, Jorge, whose baby Linux.Ars was, has been turned off it by some insensitive comments in the Battlefront. Eric Bangeman is taking over the management of the column, and intends to set up a sort of network of contributing editors and writers, assigning the responsibility of organising and editing Linux.Ars to whomever has the time and comes forward to do it.

I have a draft up of a writeup on internationalisation and localisation; let’s see if it makes it in Wednesday’s issue.

As far as the Mono patent bandwagon is concerned, I’m not worried nearly as much about patent infringement/enforcement as I am about performance. It just strikes me as a bad idea to be moving in the direction of requiring nearly every piece of GNOME software to be in the form of bytecode (Intermediate Language, whatever). I can only anticipate software becoming more CPU- and memory-hungry and less responsive, as it needs to be binary-translated every time it runs (and even if the binary translation is stored, it may never be quite as efficient or fast as native-compiled code).

What’s wrong with a properly-designed object model based on a (perhaps slightly stripped-down) CORBA middleware/IPC layer with services published and subscribed to? If the object model is done properly enough, with good-quality language bindings, we’ve realised the dream of a language-independent runtime, but without the crummy bytecode interpretation/dynamic binary translation.

As far as I can see, the primary advantage of the .NET framework is its set of class libraries. What is to prevent such libraries being built for a regular middleware-based runtime? Sure, the runtime might not allow for complex class hierarchies, but what is to prevent a middleware-based ‘wrapper’ around such an implementation, with the language bindings tidying things up? We don’t need no stinkin’ common-language runtime. (I guess I’m advocating a somewhat cleaner alternative to Microsoft’s ATL, except it’d only be a wrapper around the middleware proxy, where the actual type handling/object instantiation/etc. would be done at the runtime end.)

The .NET framework is presented as a one-size-fits-all solution, but primarily oriented toward distributed/multi-tier applications. It’s overkill for a desktop environment. It might sound nice and buzzword-compliant, but I have to question the practicality of Miguel de Icaza’s intent.

Bored @ work

So I’ve had an uncommonly eventful past two weeks.

At work, I’m blocked on feedback from the client, which doesn’t appear to be forthcoming, so I have little to do.

I built XFree86 4.4 last night from sources I downloaded and transferred to a CompactFlash card at work. I haven’t noticed anything different about it yet. Then again, I just reused my XFree86 4.3 configuration, so I didn’t get to test its automatic default configuration. At least I’ve put in better-than-your-average-Gentool optimizations, and I enabled SSE support (unlike Branden Robinson, who turns it off since it isn’t supported by the 2.2 kernels). I can’t say I’ve noticed a difference, though I haven’t run anything that particularly stresses the display server. If this was the old K6-2 machine, I might have noticed something, but Amir’s hardware is fast enough that any improvement has been negligible. It is nice and snappy, though.

Speaking of Amir, if you’re reading this, I need your mailing address. My mother threw away the shipping box before I could gank the address off it. >_<

This past week, I had two interviews, one from some company that needs Winsock/J2EE/.NET developer to build connectors between some PocketPC application they’ve written and their business logic components on a remote server, via GPRS (on a PocketPC smartphone, obviously). Prognosis: Not good. I have zero J2EE and .NET professional experience, but evidently they didn’t get a single application from anyone who remotely knew anything about socket programming, the suckers. (They had plenty of CCNA, CCDA and CCNP applicants for a “network programming” position, though — goes to show just how clueless people are in this region.)

The other was with a HR guy from a recruitment company who was hiring .NET application programmers for a consultancy that had a contract with a friend’s company. My friend knows the HR guy pretty well, so he set up the meeting. Prognosis: No go, for reasons similar to above: I have zero .NET professional experience, and he was looking to fill the position with someone who had at least five years’ worth of professional experience developing with Microsoft technologies (COM, SQL Server, Visual Basic, that sort of thing), and two years working with .NET. He hadn’t even seen my résumé before, despite the fact that I’d been applying regularly for jobs his company advertises in the newspapers. When I informed him of that fact, he searched his Inbox, and was surprised to find that I’d been applying since last July. Goes to show the level of incompetence here.

I’m truly sick of this place, and I’ve started to apply for jobs in India. India’s a worse hellhole than the United Arab Emirates as far as living conditions are concerned, but I don’t want my career development to be stunted by staying here. The aforementioned HR guy strongly suggested that I go there because, in his words, “any position you find here will be at best a compromise to let you stay in Dubai,” and he’s right. There’s nothing particularly interesting being developed here.

The aforementioned friend knows another guy who develops small-scale ERP packages in Windows (C++, VB) on the side. He is supposedly really smart, has a lot of good ideas, but can’t find enough programmers to get them down in code, since he tends to pay programmers a pittance (something like $300-$400 a month), so they tend not to stay around. (I have an inkling that the guy might also be obnoxious, because there is a good number of Indians here who will stick around looking for jobs and work with the guy just so they can cover living expenses.) I’ll try to get a meeting set up, and I guess I might work for him for a while until I can get an interview in Bangalore.

The problem then will be a lack of time. I want to get so many things done — writing for Linux.Ars, a Java certification, a .NET MCSD, and on top of this, working for this guy. I can’t possibly schedule and get all of these things done. Once I have some certs, I might gain some credibility in the job market, for now I have none here (application programmer’s market). But then, professional experience is more valuable than any education or testing I may have been through, though I can’t work for this guy long enough to have any sort of significant gain in the duration of my work experience.

I’m stuck in a rut and I don’t know how to get out of it. My mind is wasting away for lack of stimulation. I’ve gotten all rusty — I haven’t done any significant amount of programming in ages. And the skills I’d acquired, I’m forgetting. And no one seems to want me. No one has seemed to want me for nearly a year and a half.

When I get home, I feel like lying down and sleeping. Sometimes I do take a nap, and wake up all groggy. I’m afraid I’m being catapulted into another depression, not just because I’m getting little attention from the employers, but also because my neurotic parents are hell-bent on driving me crazy, though they don’t know it.

I just want to get out of this place.