Art

System design is dealing with complexity

2 November 2022 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

*“Engineering the illusion of simplicity” in Grady Booch’s book “Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications”*.

All simple problems have essentially been solved. What remain are complex problems, with thousand of movable parts and very difficult to satisfy end-users. Consequently, creating (and maintaining) software to solve these complex problems has become incredibly hard…

I have to admit that things were easier when I started learning and practising software engineering in the 1990s. Thirty years later, teaching, learning and doing software development, based on sound engineering and system design principles, are not easy and need courage and energy.

This being said, I am happy to share this formidable course / article with all of you who want to take the challenge: System Design: The complete course by Karan Pratap Singh.

*Karan Pratap Singh is a Software Engineer in San Francisco. Previously, he worked in Washington D.C., London and New Delhi.*

As I always say, I am a Computer Scientist but I don’t like the term “Computer Science”. What I do is neither about computers (in the same way that surgery is not about the scalpel) nor is a science (as a science describes some part of reality). Rather, I prefer the term “Informatique” (in French) or “Informatics” which say that what is important is the flow of information.

But, maybe, there is another way to look at “Informatics”: it is about dealing with complexity.

For example, let’s say that you need to build a “system” which NEEDS to work 24/7. This obligatorily means that the system needs to have redundancy (one computer might fail) and needs some kind of load balancing (to which computer to assign the work to be done?) and, probably, some synchronisation issue to deal with. In practice, there will be 100s of other aspects to take care of if one wants to build a fully functional system.

Hence, the importance of this fantastic “System Design” course.

Go through the course topic by topic. Discuss with people who are already conversant in them. Read articles online. Rinse and repeat.

After some weeks (or months), you will become a much better system designer. And, most importantly, you will be the one with the knowledge and skills to provide software solutions to the complex problems which real people are facing.

Enjoy (and don’t hesitate to ask me questions if there is something you don’t understand). I’ll try to answer ?

How to (really) learn

23 June 2021 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I watched an intriguing video on YouTube called How I’d Learn Music Theory (If I Had To Start Over) and, interestingly, it’s not really about music theory only but is about how to learn in general. One of the key recommendations was to read articles from research journals and, because the video was about music theory, a peer-reviewed journal called Music Theory Online was mentioned.

In it, I found this interesting research paper, which is actually an “essay”, by Jeremy W. Smith from the School of Music at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, USA. It is about how modern music uses pitch slides (glissandos), crescendos, fade ins, accelerandos, and filter sweeps (which the author calls continuous processes) to create excitement and tension, compared to more traditional notes, melodies and harmonies (which are discrete). Clearly, the author had a lot of fun and is surely a fan of EDM like me.

Underlying everything in the video is the fact that, instead of learning theory for the sake of theory, one should learn enough theory in order to get interesting things done and then learn more of the theory to get more interesting things done, etc., etc. And connect things which were previously disconnected.

By coincidence, I also read The Age of the Essay by Paul Graham yesterday, and he says: “Study lots of different things, because some of the most interesting surprises are unexpected connections between different fields. For example, jam, bacon, pickles, and cheese, which are among the most pleasing of foods, were all originally intended as methods of preservation. And so were books and paintings.”

I fully agree with these sentiments.

52em lane Lindepandans ek 28em lane Repiblik Moris

12 March 2020 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

Today is a wonderful day. Our country, Mauritius, is celebrating its 52 years of Independence and 28 years of being a Republic. That’s a tremendous achievement which we can all be very proud of, especially our grand-parents and parents who worked hard to make Mauritius what it is today: a reference for the region. Despite our humble beginnings 52 years ago, the country has come a long way and I am looking forward to further developments (provided we address the big issue of a lack of quality and competent people at the right places).

I was looking forward to be at Champ de Mars today for the official ceremony and subsequent concert. You see, since I became a Senior Adviser in Government three years ago, I have received an official invitation to be in the official stand but, up to now, I’ve always respectfully declined. The reason was, of course, that I was the only one invited and not my wife and my two kids. And, for me, celebrating independence without them didn’t feel right.

Since the kids were very young, Christina and I made it a must to celebrate Independence with them by being in the crowd at Champ de Mars. This allowed all of us to feel as belonging in a beautiful nation together with myriads of other people of different colours, beliefs and provenance. The above photo dates from 2011 when Anya was 8 and Kyan 6.

In 2012, from the crowd, we witnessed a wonderful and quite breathtaking display from the Groupement d’Intervention de la Police Mauricienne (GIPM) whose members regularly train with their French counterparts. We were quite proud of our little country and its people.

In 2013, Anya was the photographer and she took hundred of photos with her brand new digital camera (which, unfortunately, would die a few weeks later when she forgot it outside and our dog, Kiki, made a mess of it). Anya was 10 and Kyan 8.

In 2014, we had a wonderful display from the various sections of the Police Force and the kids were especially proud to be able to pose in front of the boat used by the Marine Commandos. To be honest, I didn’t even know such a unit existed but I suppose that they are the ones who intercept all those boats and skippers trying to bring in drugs from abroad.

2015 was wonderful as well and I managed to convince Kyan to climb on a Police vehicle. Christina and I were happy to note that both Kyan and Anya were growing up as true patriots: they were proud of our country and understood that they would be among the ones contributing to its development when they would be bigger.

In 2016, Christina was delighted to watch the majorettes of Queen Elizabeth College where she was a student in the 80s and 90s. The girls were very good and cause quite an impression on Anya and Kyan.

In 2018, Mauritius celebrated its 50th anniversary and the celebrations at Champ de Mars were impressive. For this wonderful milestone, I was invited by MBC to say “50 Fraz pou 50 an Lindepandans” on national TV.

But, on 12 March, it was raining quite hard and we had some difficulties seeing everything from the crowd. A lot of people were complaining. The photo of the display by the motorcycle riders of the Mauritian Police Force is of my phone which we had to use to see the display from above because, from where we were (i.e. in the crowd), we could’t understand what was happening. In addition to the rain and the fact that our viewpoint was bad, there was also the issue of my parents who were getting older and could only walk with some difficulty.

It is only then that I started realising that, maybe, things could be made better for the enthusiastic crowd of Mauritians not having official invitations (i.e. the 99.9% of people of the country).

We didn’t see much but we were just happy to be together carrying the beautiful flag of Mauritius.

In 2019, Christina, the kids, my parents and I decided not to go to Champ de Mars as we were renovating our house and it would have been tough to leave everything aside as works needed to be done on the day. But, in some ways, we were a bit relieved as well as it had become increasingly hard for us to see anything, especially when it rains.

A few days ago, Christina, who now has a knee condition, and the kids have been telling me that they were not very keen to go but I was adamant that I would be there, in the official stand and maybe for a last time because the future can be full of surprises… For the very first time in nearly a decade, I would be at Champ de Mars without my wife and my kids.

If only I knew that I wouldn’t be able to see the 2020 edition as it has been cancelled by the Prime Minister due to bad weather prevailing these days in Mauritius.

Anyway, to all of you, let me wish you a very happy “52em lane Lindepandans ek 28em lane Repiblik Moris”.

Mwa mo kontan mo Moris, mo zoli pei :-)