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Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 19:28:00 +0530 (IST)
From: "Abhishek Choudhary" <choudhary@...>

Hi,

I believe it is high time that Hindawi is brought to its final destiny. The
journey for Hindawi

has come full circle - from being non-descript to being appreciated
(including international

reviews) and awarded to being non-descript again. Its time now that Hindawi
rose to its final

destiny, or else it probably never will.

For the unoriented, a peek at Hindawi - it is a set of "complete"
programming / software

development tool-chain, including compilers, transliterators, editors /
IDE, utilities and

necessary libraries for programming in Indian languages (demonstarted very
strongly in Hindi and

Bangla). A feat yet to be achieved, demonstrably, for any other human
language, apart from

English. Why I call it "complete"? Well it includes a Hindi assembly
language, a lexer

generator, a compiler compiler and implementations of imperative, obeject
oriented, VM-based,

logic and functional languages in _Indian languages_. What this means in
_English_ is that if

you were to write _any_ other programming language in Indic, Hindawi would
suffice. Hindawi

itself is written in Hindawi. (Please read through a simple text on
compilers, preferably Aho,

to know and understand what I have mentioned.) Probably the greatest
challenge in the path

towards Indic programming languages has been the lack of understanding
beyond DTP in the common

masses. (I often quote an aquaintance "Mera beta bhi Hindi mein programming
karta hai - woh

programming karke chitthi likhta hai" - "my son can also program in Hindi -
he programs letters

in Hindi": trust me, Tex/Latex was not being referred to!)

Before going any further have a look at Hindawi (well Hindawi@Linux, the
original and more

complete Hindawi is the original Swaadheen DOS based Hindawi).

http://www.indicybers.com/hindawilinux

Why I still prefer the Swaadheen DOS based Hindawi is that the command
shell is also in Hindi

and IDE Lekhak is better than IDE Laghu (Savaksh). Hope at least some of
have tried Swaadheen

DOS and its version of Hindawi (probably on _doors and windows_).

Now, returning to the point of discussion. So Hindawi has come full circle.
While LM in Germany

says Hindawi is a programming environment supporting Indic C, C++ and
assembly (

http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/76/Linux_World_News.pdf ), some in
India says that a "true"

Indic programming language is yet to happen and Hindawi just has kids stuff
(

www.localisationlabs.com/Hindi%20Articles.aspx?
storyid=070122231030031000 ). The English version

of this article is slightly closer to truth but sadly self contradictory in
that it says there

is nothing such as an Indic programming language and then mentions Hindawi
as offering C, C++

etc in Indic ( http://www.localisationlabs.com/Localisation%20Articles.aspx?

storyid=060812111441010510 I doubt the author's understanding of
programming languages, at least

he doesn't know much about lex and yacc, and why it suffices to implement
asm, C, lex and yacc

alone for boot-straping)

Certainly, there has been support along the way. Thank you Sarai ( Gora,
Ravikant, Jeebesh,

Monica, Vivek (though you are not with Sarai now), and everyone else whom I
may have forgotten

to name ), Ravi Shankar ji (I remember I have to send you the gcc strings
files for translation

- sorry for the delay), Computer Society of India ( for the YITPA award )
and more, Abhash,

Prof. Gupta ( though circumstances prevented me from joining your team -
though I am sure the

future will change things and I may be able to be a part of Sristi ), BG
(you know who that is),

Raj Mathur, Anand Babu, Dr. VN Shukla (CDAC-Noida), Hande (Ubuntu). I am
cutting the list short

with due apologies for the sake of brevity.

Alright, returning to the topic once again. Is the search for an Indic
development platform

still not over? Certainly there is a _huge_ room, or prbably a foot-ball
field for improvement,

but "we _are_ there". And, we have been there since 2003 December when the
very prelim version

of Hindawi was ready.

What has been lacking is awareness among the people who can use Hindawi. To
solve this problem

of awareness, I am starting (not planning any more) a website for spreading
computer programming literacy among the nonEnglish-literate - HINDAWI.IN (I
have just registered the domain name). It shall be a precursor to India
Software Exchange - a comunity based software-services model, which can
possibly generate numerous new ICT jobs and prevent India losing jobs to
more low cost locations such as China, while ensuring that the overall
gains of our software professionals is improved by minimising "middle-men"
in delivering software services.

I plan it to be a free access website offering Indic programming language
and localised GNU/Linux based computer literacy, right from pre-school till
professional programmer levels. The mode of delivery shall be text,
multimedia and video lectures. The practical problem is that I cannot
afford to host this amount of data, and need hosting space - Gora can you
help me in this.

I am more of a systems programmer and not 'yet' very apt at web-based
soltuions, so I hope the web-gurus reading this will join me. We need to
chart out a syllabus. On the hardware front, we hindawi.in can serve as a
go-between for those willing to donate old computers to schools.
Technologically, we will travel from LOGO to Super-Computing and autonomous
intelligent robotics.

Let the dream come true - 2012: India - an ICT superpower. 2020: India - a
developed nation.

Jai Hind,
Abhishek



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