First ever Printed book had Chinese hardware and Indian software and Open Source Licence!

I was reading a book by Amartya Sen (Noble prize winner in Economics 1998) and found an interesting little fact I wasn't aware of, so I thought I must post it here. Let me quote from the book here.

"The first printed book in the world with a date (corresponding to 868 CE), which was a Chinese translation of a Sanskrit treatise, the so called 'Diamond Sutra', (Kumarajiva had translated it in 402 CE), carried the remarkable motivational explanation: 'for universal free distribution'".

And from the footnote.

"Kumarajiva was a half-Indian half-Kucian scholar who studied in India but had a leading position in the Institute of Foriegn Languages and literature in Xian, from 402 CE".

So here we have the first printed book in the world and the machinery it was printed on (the hardware) being Chinese, and the contents (software) attributable to original author and the translator of the book both being Indian.

Google's Chrome Strategy

If you haven't yet downloaded the new Google Chrome browser, launched yesterday, you can download it here. It's worth it. This is what a browser really should be. However this post is not about workings of the browser. There are a lot of articles about this in the last couple of days. This post is about Google's strategy for knocking Microsoft out of the race.

Really why would Google want to create a new browser when we have atleast half a dozen competent browsers already. As a matter of fact Google pays to support Firefox and that agreement is valid through 2011. And the Google Chrome browser itself is based on the WebKit rendering engine which is already being used by Apple's Safari browser. So really no advantage there except for the fact that chrome runs each tab you open as a separate process.

So what does Chrome have that the other browsers don't? A javascript compiler. Thats right, other browsers have javascript interpreters, but Chrome's V8 is really a Javascript compiler, that compiles and runs the javascript code as machine code, which is much faster than interpreting.

Thats the key. Faster javascript, means that you can run larger applications on your browser. If you have seen Google docs, you already have a spreadsheet, editor, and presentation software running on the browser. If you have faster javascript you could have software on your browser that can compete with standalone applications like Microsoft Office etc.

Think about this, over the years I have been using less of standalone applications, and more of applications on the browser. I use my browser for email, editing, spreadsheet and presentation. The only other applications I use is when I want to watch a movie or listen to music on my computer. Even that can be moved to the browser.

So there are many days that the only application I need to run on my computer is a browser. And Google has understood this for years now. That all your applications will eventually move to the browser. So Google docs and all other google apps are a step towards that goal.

Imagine the scenario. All the applications you need, now run on your browser. Does it matter what operating system you have in that case? No. Does it matter if you have an operating system at all? No. Your browser itself could be the OS too! So boot up your browser and shut down your browser! Far fetched or not, I bet this is already sending shivers down Microsoft's Spine.

Three Rules for Successful Software Development

In my years of software development I have been looking for that "holy grail" of software development methodology. There are many methodologies, Six Sigma, Agile, Extreme programming to mention a few. However these methodologies have concrete rules to be followed, and they seem to restrict the element of creativity in the process of development.

If you look at the successful software developed in recent years, especially the open source ones, none of them have been developed using the above methodologies. On the other hand they have evolved to what they are today over the years. It is in this context that I would like to set three rules for successful software development. Look at your software as an evolving organism.

1) Only software that can be partially usefull, when implemented partially, can succeed. You need your software to evolve into what your ultimate goal is. Start with a small release that you think will make it usefull for a small group of people or solves a small set of problems. Based on feedback let it evolve into the next stage, and so on until you have what you need.

2) Your software is never in sync with its current requirements. Because of the very nature of the evolutionary process, your software has adapted to the previous requirements, and is currently being adapted to the present requirements.

3) Finally Orgel's Rule, named after the evolutionary biologist Leslie Orgel. "Evolution is smarter than you are". Let your current users point out what is missing. Let them set your agenda. No one person or group of developers or analysts can point out what is missing better than your current users.

This blog was inspired by an excellant article called "In praise of evolvable systems" by Clay Shirkey.