The Rajinder Sachar report, Part I

Ok, so you've heard of the Rajinder Sachar committee report. At the least, you've heard of a report doing the rounds - the one which first tried to split the army across communal lines, and later lamented the poor state of Muslims in the country.

The conclusion of the report is something we all expected. Muslims are worse off in many areas of health, education, employment than even the Dalit community. Most Muslims live in ghettos, in slums, and have lower-than-average access to credit, to education, and to jobs. The only area where the community has adequate representation, the report says, is in our jails. Sordid.

No one can argue with the conclusions of the report, in terms of the facts presented. However, once the report came out, we had the usual cacophony of voices, criticising all and sundry for the community's backwardness, arguing how the discriminatory Indian state was jailing more Muslims considering them to be terrorists, and of course, asking for reservations for Muslims, further reservations for Dalit Muslims, and so on. Fortunately, it didn't reach a high enough crescendo to actually ask for reservations in Parliament!

We should examine these arguments in some detail. Let's take the easiest one first - the question of a far higher Muslim "representation" in our jails than in the population. Why is this so? But before that, we should ask, is it really a sign that the state discriminates against Muslims? To answer that question, we should impose another question on ourselves. Is the number of criminals 'produced' by a community only a factor of its population? So, should we have precisely 80% Hindu criminals, of which 52% are OBCs, some 2% are Brahmins, and precisely 13% Muslim criminals? This kind of pseudo-logic is one propagated by our 'intellectuals' (read commies). The argument goes - since everyone is equal, everyone is equally likely to commit a crime (as the women's rights advocates argue - every man is a 'potential rapist'). Since everyone is equally likely to commit a crime, the number of criminals who belong to a community should be proportional to its population (actually, these worthies would say "male population", but that would be blatantly sexist). Ergo, if a community has a higher 'representation' in the jails, it is being targeted. Conventional wisdom, don't you agree?

Unfortunately, this is just convenient wisdom. Anyone familiar with the criminal justice system will tell you that factors like a high level of education, fruitful employment, family support and a standing in the community all go a long way in keeping people away from crime. Therefore, communities that are less likely to foster these characteristics are more likely to have criminals amongst their midst, not to mention the fact that in this country, it is the rich that get away with murder while the poor pay for even the slightest crime.

So, yes, there is discrimination, but it is economic, not social. The State is targeting the poor, not the Muslims.

Cricket crazy? No, power drunk.

What can you say about the hours of debate the honourable members of parliament spent in discussing the Indian team's performance in SA? One way to look at it is that the honourable members are as crazy about Cricket as the rest of us. Another way to look at it is to think that the honourable members have conveyed the dismay(!) of the rest of us to the team. But in reality, it is nothing more than the honourable members being so drunk on power that they can't distinguish between national issues and notional ones. It is about them being so high on the power drug that they think they own all of Indian Cricket, simply because one very honourable member is the chief of the BCCI.

But why am I so angry? Well, it pisses me that my weekend-working-eye-drying-rsi-causing work is going to pay for these a*holes' power trips. It pisses me that when there are 260 million people starving, the rulers of the country have nothing better to discuss. Most of all, it pisses me that this is another intervention into the private space of the individual (or in this case, the team). What we'll have next is Ramdas Athavale criticising Rahul Dravid's fashion sense. And then criticising Aishwarya Rai's performance in a Bond movie (if and when she gets to it). And then, parliament will pass a resolution criticising Shah Rukh Khan for singing badly. And then...you get the idea.

But like everything else in this house of honour, this debate wasn't devoid of humour. Sharad Pawar with his cancer-eaten jaw talking about performance and Ambika Soni talking about sportsmanship(!) were both so much like Brutus talking about Roman democracy that I could only marvel at the similarities. But the icing on the cake was provided by the anti-Dalit, anti-performance Ramdas Athavale, who suggested that the only way out was to provide Dalit reservation in sport! Yeah, and then we can also amend cricketing rules so that Dalit batsmen don't have to walk until they are bowled thrice, we can amend the rules so that any bouncer bowled to a Dalit batsman will automatically add 5 runs to his score, and we can amend the rules so that every 5 balls a Dalit bowls, an opposition batsman must walk. See more of the consequences here.

No one is irreplaceable

Among the many urban legends governing the software industry, the one which has gained currency in recent times is the one about no engineer being irreplaceable. We've all seen it in action - many times, a lead developer quits in the midst of a project, and yet the project reaches fruitition. A manager may leave, but the project gets completed on time, on budget. In fact, a rather gory saying for this phenomenon, where you can simply replace an engineer by an other, is: "If your lead engineer gets hit by a truck, your project should still run on schedule."

However, is it true? Are engineers replaceable/dispensable?

I don't know. Years ago, the team lead, my mentor and guru for my first project suddenly quit. He was followed by two other senior members in the team. Now, all we had was a team of freshers, and the average experience of the team in that domain was around 6 months (down from around 2 years). Still, we pulled the project through. A couple of years later, two of my close friends left the team. The project went on as usual. Then, I quit, and there was still no material difference to the project - yes, people worked harder to make up for the loss of a teammate, but otherwise, to the external world, everything was hunky-dory. Since then, I've left two companies, and many people have left my place of work, and life went on as usual.

What this ignores though is the sociological aspect. In a well-jelled team, every team member has a place of his own - not just technologically or organizationally, but also sociologically. Invisible threads of trust, of emotional support, of friendship that take months to build are usually torn off when a person leaves. Those are harder to replace. When the seniors in my first project quit, the rest of us were able to take over the technical and organizational aspects quite well. The ten things that my mentor was responsible for, we split amongst the four (or five) of us. What we couldn't split (immediately) is the sense of confidence of having someone to turn to when we were in trouble. What we couldn't take over was the friendly smile that greeted us when we approached him with a problem. Ofcourse, with time, we built support structures of our own - which were again dismantled when people left.

I think this is the aspect of turnover that is largely ignored by companies. What thinks you? Use the comments link freely to express your opinions.

Technology notes Vol 1, Ed 2, Nov 06

Welcome to the second edition of Technology notes. This time we have:

* Peopleware

At the recently held Bangalore Book Fair, I got the opportunity to finally buy a book I'd been hunting for a long time. This book, called "Peopleware", written by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister is a classic - something that can be compared with "The Mythical Man-month".

Now we've all heard about hardware, software, shareware, and even vapourware. So, what is peopleware? Well, it is about the only raw material that matters in the software world - people. It is all about how people must be managed, the kind of work environments that software companies must provide, and the kind of managers/senior leaders that you must have in the profession for a company to succeed.

A must read book for anyone, including those not in the profession. Nothing in the book is new - just uncommon, like common sense. Let me know (if you're in Bangalore), if you want to borrow the book.

* Pair programming

The first time I heard about pair programming, I laughed my heart out. My good friend Sathya who introduced the concept tried very hard, in his own inimitable way, to convince me about the worth of the concept. Nothing would make me budge...two programmers working on the same piece of code at the same time!? What crap! What about productivity? What about cost!? What about conflicts!? These were all questions I asked.

It is a different matter though, that later in my life, I actually wrote a paper on the benefits of pair programming! Even then, despite having officially pair-programmed more than a few times, I hadn't experienced the "Aha" moment - when I was convinced that pair programming helped me do a better job of something.

Around a month back, a manager at my workplace had a cool idea on some updates to a web-site that we host. Essentially, we were changing the rendering algorithm, and he asked if I would work with him on it. I agreed, and man, was it fun! The three hours we spent deciphering the existing code and tailoring his algorithm were probably the most productive hours I've spent in some time! And it was fun! We each complemented the other's skills, learnt from the others' approach to code, and finally came off with renewed respect for each other.

Now that is the "Aha" moment I was looking for. That is one of the biggest benefits of pair programming - building better teams.

Anyways, this is all for this edition. Keep visiting this space for more technical updates. Next time, I plan to write about user-interfaces and the general stagnation in the area.

See the previous edition of technology notes here:

Linguistic Abuse

The eternal bard once said "What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Maybe true. But every word has a meaning. And to use a word in a manner as to distort its meaning is unfortunately, today's journalistic trend.

For example, take the word (phrase?) "high-tech". It stands for high-technology - which means technology of a certain calibre, a certain novelty, and a certain degree of precision, one that stretches the state-of-the-art in a field. How do our papers use the word? Well, simply, everything in the 'high-tech' (sic) city of Bangalore is high-tech. The bus-stand is hi-tech, even though it doesn't have proper water-proofing. The buses are hi-tech, even though they run on 80s technology. The government is hi-tech, even if it doesn't understand technology. Everything is hi-tech. Most vulnerable to this phenomenon is the New Indian Express - which is otherwise an excellent read.

Here is an other one. "Militant". Websters' defines "Militant" as someone who takes to arms for a selfless cause. A "terrorist", on the other hand, is one who "systematically uses terror as a means of coercion". So, are the terrorists in Kashmir working for a selfless cause? Or are they using terror to coerce the Indian government into accepting the two-nation theory? Well, if you go by the anchors, they are those fighting for a selfless, no doubt, secular, cause.

I'll add more as I remember them.

The biggest threat to India

Here is a pop quiz. In one word, what is the biggest threat to the security, development, and integrity of this country? Terrorism? No. Poverty? Not at all. So, is it fundamentalism? Nope. So, what is it?

Well, it is Communism. And communist control over premier educational institutions in the country. This in turn has led to their control over all of primary/secondary education, over most of the print and visual media, and over many influential institutions like the ICHR. As Ayn Rand, in her book, The Fountainhead, eloquently stated, this bunch of commies are not interested in 'physical' power. What they want is power over thought. Power over the minds of the people. They want to hold the levers to power, not power itself.

So, how do they accomplish this mind-control? By obfuscating facts. By telling lies. And by having acolytes back their lies. Here is an example: In today's "We the people", the debate was about "Health-care outsourcing". Barkha Dutt introduced a Bill-something from California who had come in to Fortis for treatment. He was obviously impressed with the world-class facilities and the low cost. Obviously. And two other truths are self-evident. Health-care outsourcing helps hospitals improve, it gets India more foriegn exchange, and it clearly benefits the patient. Now that the worthies cannot dispute these facts, the JNU-types on the show ask, "Who will do anything about the Indian Bills?". Point. But what does this have to do with the whole concept? Indian Bills cannot afford treatment because the government spends 1% of the GDP on healthcare, instead of 5-7% like the other countries, and even that 1% is not used effectively. It is not because the private hospitals treat foriegn patients. But the force with which these guys put it, the private hospitals are put in the dock, for no fault of theirs. And in this debate, you can be sure, there will be no mention of all the Pakistani kids who got treatments done here! BTW, if you treat a Pakistani, if you treat a Kashmiri terrorist, you are a national hero. If you treat an American, you are a blood-sucking vulture.

And this is typical. Praise a NarayanaMurthy for creating Infosys, and these worthies will say "Oh, it provides jobs to only 50,000 people." Praise the software industry for letting these worthies fly to other countries witout being treated as terrorists, and these will say "Oh, it is *just* a few million jobs." Praise the export sector for doing well, and these worthies will point to all those below the poverty line. But praise a Mao, praise a Stalin, praise a Caucescu - all butchers, and these a*holes will clap with you.

Disgusting. And if you haven't read these three books - Animal Farm, 1984 and The Fountainhead, I'll urge you to read them now. It is the duty of every citizen to see through the propaganda of these a*holes.

Much more typecasting

If you are one of those who is going to heave a huge sigh of anguish, you are not the only one. Yes, I know, I've ranted on and on and on about typecasting people. And I've admitted that I've been guilty of the same. So why am I blogging about it again!? Is there anything new I want to say about the topic? Well, not really, but it is surprising that even after I made my transition from C++ to C#, the typecast haunting continues, albeit in different forms, which is what I want to mention.

The underlying theme is the same. Being ever so slightly(!) on the plumper side of things, people are surprised that I ran the marathon. But what is most funny is when other people who throw run-time exceptions when typecasted, typecast you. Oh, you make jokes, so you can't handle serious! Oh, you don't believe in God, so you cannot enjoy classical music. Oh, you like the US, so you cannot enjoy Mohd Rafi. Oh, you speak ever so softly, so you cannot drive your Swift at over 100 kmph. What is worse is that when conversations steer to the above mentioned topics, I'm automatically classified as a liar, a futile boast, and what not.

Oh, well. The good thing is that I'm getting used to it. The bad thing is that I'm still guilty of typecasting. :)

Cell phone conversation

Those of you that know me in the real world know that I don't have a cellphone. Now, being without a cellphone in 21st century India puts one in funny situations at times. Here is one incident that happened when I had just joined my present job.

Receptionist (Opening a register of employee contact information): Sir, can I have your cellphone number...in case someone wants to contact you

Moi: No, sorry, I don't have a mobile phone

R (Incredulous look on his face): Sir, but we'll keep it confidential...won't give it to anyone

M: No, really, I don't have a mobile phone!

R: Sir, but we need it for our records...
(At this time a 'worker' walks in carrying a heavy case. He keeps it on a table nearby, fishes out a mobile from his pocket and dials...)

R: Sir, even *he* has a cell phone...

M (big smile on my face): Well, OK...what you mean by that!?

R: Sir, you *really* don't have a mobile?

M: No, *really*, I don't have a mobile...do you want to check my bags now to confirm it?

R: No...sir, sorry...

(Moi walks out of the door...the 'worker' suspiciously follows me out, staring at me most of the time...)

The biggest obstacle to Time travel

No, it is not grammar. Nor is it the 'Grandfather paradox'. Really. The biggest obstacle to time travel is the digital watch. After all, how can you turn back the hands of time when they don't exist?

Pseudo logic.

Earlier, I had posted a link to Michael Crichton's criticism of the SETI 'equation'. I came across more such pseudo-logic recently. And on no less than the Discovery channel.

I was watching this programme on Discovery where a 'researcher' is researching the death of Julius Caesar. He wants to know who killed him, and why. No problem with that. But how do you find out how many stab wounds a guy killed over 2000 years ago took without having access to his dead body? And of the 22 senators that are supposed to have plotted to kill him, whose knife dealt the death blow? And this lunatic even goes to the extent to say that not all stab wounds Caesar suffered were fatal. And he wants to do research to find out which ones were...how on earth do you do this!? He performs a 'simulation'. He has 22 guys trying to stab a single person, and apparently when they all tried together, not all the wounds that occurred were fatal! Geez!

This is the kind of thinking that pervades most of Indian life today. I'm subscribed to an orkut community on Calvin and Hobbes, on which someone posted a question wondering what Calvin's star sign was. Here is what is possibly the 'best' answer:

[quote]
he has to be an Aries..my guys an Aries...n he is no less than Calvin....n he adores him a lot...so gotta be Aries
[/quote]

What astounding logic! Calvin has to be an Aries, because 'her guy' is an Aries and he is adores Calvin. Haven't these people heard of 'evidence'? Or 'scientific enquiry'? (The second question was for the Caesarian idiot.)

Online literature

I found this site with some really cool books:
http://www.online-literature.com/

Also, visit the Distributed Proof readers page:
http://www.pgdp.net/c/

How to become an acclaimed Indian author

After Kiran Desai won the Booker this year, and the resounding success of leading lights like Anita Desai, Arun'dirty' Roy, and Kaavya Vishwanathan, I've been wondering: "What exactly does it take to become an acclaimed Indian author?" Well, here is what you need to do:

- Be of Indian origin. (Well, this one is a no-brainer.) At the least, fake it.

- Immigrate to the US, or to the UK. Or better still, have your parents immigrate when you are hardly speaking

- Write about one of the following topics:
* How your Grandmother was married off at 12
* How your mother (or yourself) was never allowed to date a guy
* How your grandparents arranged your parents' marriage
* How your grandfather always had the last word in everything
* How your grandmother, mother, aunts behaved
* How you never kissed a guy till you reached the US (or the UK)

- Now, praise the US and the UK for being the free societies they are, in which, thanks to the grace of the Lord merciful, you can actually kiss a guy! (Even if you are one!!!)

- Lambast western capitalism. Fly in business class to attend World Social (sic) Forum meetings to rant against the wealthy.

- Wait until the Guardian or the New York Post publishes a review of your work.

Lo and behold, in no time, you'll be one of the grand candidates for the Booker, the Nobel, or what have you.

Cosmos

Have you ever, as a child, slept on the roof of your home? I used to - there was a time when frequent power cuts in my locality during summer nights forced me to do so. Lying still in complete darkness, I used to stare up at the skies and wonder why the stars shone, why they didn't fall on my head, who made the splotches on the moon, whether you could stand on the clouds and a hundred other things. Later, as I learnt more about the solar system (through Flash Gordon comics, Russian magazines and books, and our own "Bala Vijnana"), my fondest dream was space travel.

I always dreamt of being "Scotty Scott" - the chief engineer of Star Trek. I'd be navigating my ship through the open vastness of space, then upon sighting the Milky Way, would swoop down to its outermost spiral, and then fly past Orion, be warmed by Proxima Centauri, and finally, see Pluto, Uranus and Neptune, before wondering at the rings of Saturn, the blazes of Jupiter's red spot, then announce to the crew to be prepared to gun down any asteroid that got too close, and finally, peek beside Mars to see a bluish-white Earth. I'd then announce to the crew that we were nearing home, and I'd then call "Hassan" - where the ISRO Master Control Facility is located, to guide me in, to land at, where else? HAL Airport! I knew then that my ambition in life was to become a space scientist, building FTL (Faster-Than-Light) ships, powered by anti-gravity.

Whew. If you're wondering why I'm delirious, let me say that this is the after-effect of reading Carl Sagan's "Cosmos". An extremely well-written book, Cosmos is a great mix of History, Science, and Philosophy - a most honest attempt to explain the human fascination with the Cosmos. Beyond the science though, Cosmos raises a few relevant questions regarding our fascination with God, our arrogance to imagine life as being mainly carbon-based, the importance of arousing scientific curiosity amongst children and also of the importance of democracy and free thinking in progress. The last point to me was most interesting. Sagan points out that all the societies that reached high levels of scientific sophistication were some form of democracies - ancient Greece, medieval Holland, today's America. While the evidence he supplies is rather sketchy, it is interesting to see that Tom Friedman, in his "The World is Flat" refers to modern India in the same vein. So, is that true? What do you think?

I'll write more about Cosmos and Carl Sagan's other book, Contact in the coming weeks. Oh, and if you haven't seen Star trek, you can see some pix, videos and get an overall picture of the series at: http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/index.html. Also,

To know more about Flash Gordon: Click here
To crib about today's comic books: Click here.
To know more about me space fantasises: heh heh. Keep visitin'.

I told you so

Earlier on my blog, I wrote about the idiocy of the Manmoron Govt in opting to support Shashi Tharoor's nomination for UNSG. Well, this week, the expected happened, and in all probability, it was China that expressed a desire to veto his nomination. Well done, Moron!

Moron has a lot to learn from Laloo about international politics. I remember Laloo's immortal words: "I don't want to be king. I want to be king maker!" (Read with a Bihari accent.) In the world of politics (domestic or international), it is the king maker that has more power, not the king. Think Sonia v/s Manmohan, Left v/s UPA, Jayalalitha v/s Vajpayee first edition, Laloo v/s Deve Gowda and Gujral. How can we expect the 'paavum' (Tamil; innocent) economist to realize this!?

So much for listening to the pinkos, reddies, and nammies.

How did I do it!?

Ever since I wrote about my participation in the Bangalore International Marathon, I've been inundated by requests to blog about my preparation for the same. (Ok, actually, there was only one request from my friend Kattricker, but a little bloggetic license never hurt anyone, eh?)

I kind of decided at the beginning of the year (it was actually one of my new-year resolutions) that I should participate in a marathon this year. So, I started practicing - running around 5km/day (actually jogged/walked/ran for 5kms) on weekdays and 11kms on weekends since February of this year. This was on empty stomach, with no fluid intake in-between. Midway, I realized that completing 42kms in 3+ hours was simply not my cup of...well, Gatorade, so I decided to go in for the half-marathon. And I continued this for nearly 4-5 months.

Just before the race though, I had a quiet period because of work pressure, and couldn't keep up the schedule. But anyway, I had to attempt this - I had come too far down the road to give up. (BTW, thanx to a mythical creature who egged me on.) So, the day before the race, I ate well, slept early (as the race was scheduled to begin at 5:30AM, I had to get up real early), and was off. I wouldn't have completed the race if I wasn't paced by my former manager, Venky. He had run in the previous race, and showed me how to pace myself. Another thing we kept in mind was to drink just enough water to keep us going, and not gulp down a litre at each leg of the race.

So, that's it...and BTW, if you folks are under any illusion that this is something great, let me tell you that my average speed of around 6kms/hr, is just above normal walking speed. So, it is just that _I_ entered the race - anyone else could've done it with equal or greater ease. Finishing it in around 2.5 hrs - with an average speed of around 8-9kms/hr - now that'll be an achievement.

Where is my post?

Did you folks know that you cannot search for posts older than a certain date in Blogger? I was looking for one of my early posts, and the search facility in Blogger was of no help!

I also looked for a feedback link to give them a piece of my mind, but that doesn't seem to be present, either!!!

What is happening, Google!?
(For the skeptics, try this: Search for "Gandhi" in my blog. You'll see one result with the title "Nostalgia updated". Then, go to this link:

http://gopswritings.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_gopswritings_archive.html and you'll see another instance of "Gandhi". Why isn't this shown in the results!? Or why doesn't Blogger come forth and state that posts before a certain date cannot be searched!?

Blow hot, Blow cool

One thing I never understood about the Americans is their obsession with the two adjectives hot and cool. From what I know, 'hot' means being beautiful/attractive, and 'cool' means being with the times. Physics be damned, most American lives circulate around making themselves both hot and cool, and at the same time! It starts in childhood when every girl has to become a 'hot' cheerleader and every boy a 'hot' football player. At the same time, every child has to be cool - which essentially means they should have a position at the popular table in school. Anyone who is warm is essentially consigned to the dustbin as a geek, dork, nerd, or a whatchyagonnacallit.

And the trend continues throughout. That you have to be both cool and hot to get dates is a given. What is funny is how parents (some of them at least) try to be cool with their kids. Trying to pickup teen-lingo, trying to 'hangout' with them, trying to be with the times in letting them do as they like...the scene would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic.

That really is the tragedy of the US. If President Bush is really serious about 'reforming' the education system, the first thing he'd have to do is to get the US rid of this temperature obsession. That is the reason many US kids don't do well in maths and science. There are few problems with US public schools - if Indian schools had half the infrastructure, facilities and teaches that US public schools have, there would have been no software industry in the US. What is required is a little perspective.

Christopher Alexander

Most folks in the software field know about Design Patterns - the timeless way of designing software first elucidated by the Gang of Four. But not many know that the original inspiration for these patterns came from Christopher Alexander - who in his all-time classics "The timeless way of building" and "A pattern language", captured patterns in architectural design for posterity. I've been trying to buy these books for some time now, without success, but today, I saw on Eric Raymond's site, a lot of information about the same.

For those who are interested: http://www.math.utsa.edu/sphere/salingar/Chris.text.html

Bangalore International Marathon 2006

Today I completed the half-marathon organized as part of the Bangalore International Marathon event. All 21.097 kms of it. It was fun!

Technology notes - Vol I, Ed I, Sept 06

For some time, I've been thinking that I need to have a regular spot on my blog for anything I want to write about technology. So, in the spirit of the times, I'm calling it "Technology notes" - random jottings about my tecxperiences. ;)

* Why hotmail sucks

I've been using hotmail since the time it was the only free, web-based, e-mail service provider, way back in the mid-1990s. Even when I got my Yahoo and Gmail accounts, I continued to use my hotmail account for some of my e-mail. Of late, Microsoft has paid more attention to Hotmail, and I now have like 2GB of free storage, and a whole new interface that looks just like Outlook. While the extra storage is welcome, and is a marked improvement over the 2MB I had earlier, the new interface, simply sucks.

First, it takes a long while to load. Then, I still need to click on "Inbox" to access my e-mail. Why can't Hotmail (and Yahoo) simply take me to my Inbox? Do I login to check my Junk e-mails, or do I login to check my Inbox!?
My next peeve is the usage of screen real-estate. The "Windows Live" banner takes away 25% of screen space, and there is a lot of additional white space surrounding it, which makes my e-mail pane really small and forces me to do a lot of scrolling. This is another illustration of forgetting user needs over self-aggrandization. It doesn't look like the product has seen a lot of usability testing.
Finally, there is the point about Junk e-mail filters. Hotmail's is probably the worst in the business. There is hardly any filtering done and all the junk simply lands up in my Inbox totally reducing my effectiveness in processing my e-mail.

Anyways...

* Unicks rocks

Heh heh. Did I just hear a "I told you so" from somewhere in Sahakaranagar, Kansas City, LA and Singapore? All I can say in response is that I believe in the "horses for courses" theory. There are things about Windows that are nice, and the same holds for Unix. But anyway, coming to the point of this post - the problem with WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) is WYSIWAG (What You See Is All You Get). No designer can design a GUI for doing everything a user may want - but a group of well written tools that confirm to an interface can rock your world.

How did I realize this? Well, recently, I had to create a password file for a project I'm working on. The file stored a triple - username, password and a user directory for users enrolled in the system. For bootstrapping, I already had a directory tree with a lot of user directories listed, so I wanted to write a script that'll run through the tree, and dump each folder name into a text file in the format X, , X, where X is the directory name and passwd is a number that gets incremented for each directory.
Question was, how can I do it easily on Windows? Well, a small C program might do the trick, but then I need to check for file handles, and stuff like that which is clearly not an option. DOS shell scripting is too primitive - for example, the for loop can only execute one command! So, if you want to execute multiple commands, you need to put them into a separate batch file! And I don't know anything in VB, so there was no way I was going to write my 'program' in VB script.
I was in a quandary, cursing myself for not having a Unix shell somewhere, when cygwin came to my rescue. One install and two lines of shell script later, my password file was ready!

So there. While GUI's have played a very important role in making computers more accessible, a shell prompt is indispensable if you are doing serious programming, as I realised after this experience.

On an aside: Eric S Raymond has these fun Unix Koans, with the one about GUI's being the best. Read them here.