Software at a Streetlight

A generation of good boys worked as engineers for public sectors, churning out axles, motors and telephones. Now their children, without the bell-bottoms, are devoting themselves to debugging code for American clients.

Indian programmers might end up in project management within about ten years of going past that toll-booth, the engineering college. You're not a programmer for ever; it's just the bramhachari stage. The more meta your work, the further it is from actual work, the whiter your collar. And if you're not a genuine geek, you might look for shortcuts and return from a B-school to evade programming. I'm a business analyst in a software company. My work is about work- place that in square brackets and raise it to three. I've always wondered what the point is.

Programmers in the U.S are usually older. I work with two: one's forty-something, another's sixty-something. They like programming. And- contrary to the Indian perception that Americans aren't good at analytics- they're very good at it. They like to sit back, look at their work, and beam like bakers high on fresh bread.

Programmers who love their jobs are interesting people. Zed, for instance- the fortyish chap- is a Star Wars devotee. And that's how I get my work done. I patiently gape with wide eyes and raised eyebrows when he crosses light-beam-swords and tells me how Yoda says this and Jedi Master does that. He bellows in his cubicle, a rusky larynx ripping the skies, prophesying doom. I'm not particularly moved- so much dishoom-dishoom- but if I listen long enough he'll work on what I need him to, and come up with something slick in half a day, so I can say in my next conference call that the project's on track, without swallowing. Zed is also addicted to eating ice-cubes.

Jose, ("HO-say") sixty-plus, is half-man, half-unfightable-bull, and the only photograph of his I've seen had him holding up a martyred marlin as large as me on a yacht. He's Venezuelan and is baiting trout as I type. Talks like an iron beam. I have to weigh each word when I call him up and ask for some tweaking of code: "Now first, Kaushik young man," his voice says. "Let's put this down so e-ver-y-bod-y is clear. Okay. Now. V-e-r-y carefully. Are we talking about inbound. Or outbound. Or both?" I feel like a boy in the headmaster's room.

One thing I've learned is that when you're working on software projects and don't know a thing about software, you have to come up with all sorts of contorted devices just to stay afloat. With Jose, we hit a dead end yesterday. No Way he'd agree for one more interface. And he can say so- because he's the only chap who knows what he's doing. So we sat grumpily. Then my boss had one aerated buster of an idea- appeal to his manhood.

We called him up and did that. "Now Jose, that was just something we mentioned in passing. I think we're stuck- and we'll just tell the Channels Team that we can't do it. It certainly looks impossible for you to program."

Ho gaya! Aaiythu guru! Jose looked it up on his own, without telling us, and came up with a smart interface that blends six kinds of data into a single, finger-snapping click. Just like that. Extra-curricular activity.

The two programmers also turn into home theatre systems from time to time. "Like you just import it in the database, and Pppthhhlllfffff it gets sorted just like you want it...yeah" "The program doesn't mind if you use integers. But you can't have duplicate- it'll just go Aeeeennk and laugh at you...yeah".

Zed wears a crumpled collared tee over a crumpled collarless tee. And he sits there like that in his cubicle, stubbled and balding, grinding ice-cubes in his mouth, with an egg-shaped head that glints in the mid-day sun. A sketch-poster of Yoda, flaring ears and all, is right beside him. "Go Yoda! Go Yoda!" is his hand-scribbled caption.

Another thing about software- apart from gentlemen as these- is that it's about detail. You can't tell a program to Just Do It. Remember, it all reduces to circuitry and signals. One step before that is an army of zeroes and ones, low voltage and high voltage. Everything, even the President's name and what we do with it, is reduced to that.

Take this teacup. Drink. How facile! But explain that to a circuit in a box. What's a teacup? What is drinking? So you teach it what a teacup is. Then you teach it to see. Then to find an object. Then to connect The Teacup with what it knows of A Teacup. No assumptions are possible. Every single detail is a must.

The mind crackles with code when we open windows, comb our hair, hesitate at gates. And in some of my daily missions- like foraging for a lone sock's partner, always bloody missing when I'm late- I probably do millions of things without knowing it: signals, encryption, algorithms boarded like trains; if, then, seek, erase, action, no, panic, Ah! phew! found; wear, scoot...

It's not that we can replace the mind with the artificial. But software gives a fellow some idea of how much detail there is in common events in our world; in how the baby's got its nose, in the branching of stems, the mating of turtles; in the cat's recognition of your face and its decision to ignore you today.