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The quarterly newsletter of Deerwalk Institute of Technology.
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The Deerwalker
ISSUE IV
THE DEERWALKER CLUB IN THIS ISSUE
Mind Mapping
There are times when we work on a project or a task, we have so many things going in our minds.
Page 7
“The 5 programming languages you need to know” One of my mentors once told me that a programming language is just a programming language. It doesn't matter if you're a good programmer, it's the syntax that matters,” But actually this isn’t …
Page 16
Editor – In – Chief
Bhawana Dahal
Editors
Ruby Shrestha
Sunil Shrestha
Bidish Acharya
Asmita Kunwar
Columnists
Binod Aryal (Designer)
Sumit Shrestha
Reporters
Ronit Pradhan (Designer)
Bhishan Bhandari
Aswin Aryal
Our Message Dear Readers,
We present you the fourth volume of The Deerwalker.
Before you read it, we bet that this issue is the real-most issue we have published. Reality at its best, fellow readers. Reality of finding writers at Deerwalk Institute of Technology. Surprising faces wrote for us this time ,more like ,we made them write for us but little truth is sometimes, much sweeter than the entire one.
This issue comprises of articles from many surprising writers from DWIT. This time around, we gave that extra push to our tech-freak friends and brought out the writers in them. And, we take immense pride in having done so. The outcome is a beautiful blend of an honest attempt and honest writing. We congratulate and thank all the writers of this issue, for this issue.
Thank you!!
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 3
It is said that a hungry man is an angry man. I was hungry, no doubt; but it was with a feeling of relief that I knocked on the door of my house. I saw the same emotion on my mother’s face when she opened
it. I went into my room and breathing a sigh of relief, sank into the bed. For some time, I just laid there thinking about the past three hours.
At 5 pm the bell signaled the end of yet another day at school and just like any other day I walked up to the stop to catch my bus. I however was in for an unpleasant surprise when I saw not a vehicle in sight. I overheard people talking and gathered that a public bus had hit a pedestrian several block away and the local people were not letting any vehicle run in protest. It was then, that with a jolt of my hungry stomach, I realized I had to walk home.
The distance between my school and my home was roughly seven kilometers with the last part of that journey being a steep climb. Walking home from school was something I had never done before and attempting with a hungry stomach was daunting indeed.
Road accidents were at that time, and still are very common in Nepal; just like the senseless and sometimes violent protests that follow. This was one of the many similar incidents that took place around the time.
As I moved on, a sense of dread crept in. Those days I used to be frail and weak and used to fall ill regularly. “What if I do not make it
home?” I thought “What if I faint
somewhere on the way?” Another
part of me however said “Do not
think like that, just put one foot in front of the other and let’s see
where we can get. If a situation arises, then it shall be dealt with, when it does.” So steeling my mind
from negative thoughts, I began to think about the song “we shall
overcome…”
Finally, I began the climb and my
body was aching for rest. Never in my life had I walked such a distance, let alone with a back-pack full of books and a hungry stomach. I was gritting my teeth and trying to block the pain in my legs and shoulders as much as I could. I kept telling myself “Just a
bit further…”, “You can do it…” just willing one foot to go in front of the other.
After an hour that seemed to last a century, at long, long last, I saw my house. I had never appreciated what it meant to me as I did at that moment. I had never been happier to see my own house. Thinking that I had just accomplished something that used to be unthinkable for me, I knocked on the door thinking “I
did it.” and that’s that, my longest journey home.
A hungry man is an angry man. by Subigya Kumar Nepal
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 4
Fun with Programming
Deerwalk Institute of Technology
by Sumit Shrestha
A IT college in Kathmandu City
Where there is no problem of damn electricity
Stepping inside it's always a fun day
Computer expert all around us doing things their way
Trying to catch our dream and bright aim
Coming here realized coding isn't a game
Experiencing new things everyday
Still got time to reach far away
Enjoying every moment of impossibility
Proud to be a student of Deerwalk Institute of Technology
1 2
4 6
8 3 10
5
7
9
Across
1. Float, int, double and char are known as …….. (9)
3. Used to separate actions to be carried out (9)
5. Loop inside a loop (5)
7. Its value cannot be altered by the program (8)
9. Expresses some action to be carried out (9)
Down
2. Process of arranging the values in ascending or descending order (7)
4. Represents ‘?’ operator (7)
6. Refers directly to another value (7)
8. Passing an argument in a function (9)
10. Used as annotation (7)
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 5
Advantages:
Problem solving skills and logic development: As a gamer, we often face situations where we have to depend upon our problem solving skills. Constantly trying to solve puzzles makes our brain sharper and makes us smarter. Games like LIMBO really takes our problem solving capacity to another level.
Concentration and Coordination between different organs: In games like Counter strike, a player has to keep running and shooting all the time. During the game, a player must be very instinctive and his eye-hand coordination comes into play to get the better off the game.
Planning and Resources management:
Gaming teaches us how to make the most out of minimal resources. Games such as Age of Empires, SimCity actually teaches gamers how to build stuff while collecting and expanding their cities. According to AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION, game SimCity has inspired many gamers to join building and community development.
Learning to read and to follow instructions: I remember playing Unchanged Waters: New Horizon. During the game play, I had to math’s, complex addition and subtraction in order to keep my ships floating and crew alive. Gaming can improve your language and vocabulary. Games such as Age of Empires teaches people about the historical events of different eras and
geographical knowledge of different countries.
Making like-minded Friends: Gaming has one benefit to a gamer that is related to his social life: Making likeminded friends. As a gamer, I have many friends that live in distant part of the world whom I’ve never seen before but are friends because we share a same interest. Gaming helps you to communicate with others. Also any gaming topic can be used as a conversation starter among many people regardless of whether the other person plays the game or not. These are few of many advantages that gaming has in our lives. It is almost impossible to write down all the advantages of gaming. But it’s not all good. Gaming if done excessively and careless can literally destroy a person's career. Below listed are some of the disadvantages of gaming:
EFFECTS OF GAMING: by Avusan Gautam
Games are Games. They come in all genres and platforms. In this era, where technologies has taken over our realities, gaming has become a part of our daily life style. Everyone can be found playing game once in a while. People who play games are called gamers but not everyone can be a gamer. Being a gamer requires complete dedication and loyalty and there is a huge risk involved.
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 6
Disadvantages:
ANTI-SOCIAL: (This problem is so big, I simply had to capitalize it) Obsessive gaming can deprive a person from being social. A true-gamer will always prefer playing games in his machine than hang out with his friends. When he actually goes out with them and the conversation strays away from his interest, the situation becomes depressing and the person becomes irritable. This creates a void in his life, something that cannot be filled easily.
Trouble focusing on studies/work: Gaming can be very addictive, so addictive that a person will constantly try to play the game in his head when he is not in his machine. He'll constantly have flashbacks of his last encounter in the game, he'll remind himself of the mistakes he made and he tries to find a better solution to solve it.. While this may develop his problem solving skills and logical analysis, this
spells disaster in his career. The gamer cannot concentrate on his life goal, slowly straying away from his
work/assignment and ultimately ruining him. (Very relatable).
Physical Fitness, Lack of: Gamers are used to sitting in front of their machine with very little or no exercises. Slowly it becomes uncomfortable to move around. Many gamers are also reported to have developed backache and stiffness.
Lack of sleep: Gamers have unusual sleeping habits. Many sleep after midnight while some go to extreme limits and don’t sleep for days. This causes many health hazards such as
dullness, laziness, eye patches and unable to function properly during the days.
Violent games such as GTA have been reported to be the cause of the destruction caused by teenagers but it is foolish to say that a game can encourage people to cause harm to other person. Either way, games should be played
once in a while. Professional gaming has proved that there is a hope for want to be gamers. But those people that only want to pass some time should stay away from being addicted. Or else, the worse will befall on them.
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 7
Mind Mapping by Milan Lamichhane
There are times when we work on a project or a task, we have so many things going in our minds. We think a lot about small components related to that project or task but it’s really hard to relate one with other. We know what
needs to be done but we don’t know where to start. If we make a list of those components or take notes, it will surely help to get started. However, there is a better way to work this out.
Mind mapping is a technique to visually represent and organize information. It basically ‘maps out’ your ideas.
You start with a subject and build an intuitive framework around it. The outcome will be a non-linear graphical layout.
Let’s explain this with an example. Suppose you are working on a project to build a simple website. You already
know the requirements and have started brainstorming. You know that there are standard pages for each website and you start taking note. Starting with home page, about us page, contact us page, etc., you make a list of couple of pages that needs to be in that website. You add few more pages and other artifacts to your list as you start working on it. The problem with such list or notes is that, they lack showing connection between items. Now let’s
try with mind mapping.
You start with a subject. In this case, a “Website”. Start adding pages and connect them to the center subject.
The first step of creating a map is just to add items. Even if something is not related to center topic at this time, just add it.
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 8
Now, let’s work with each item in the map. In the header section, you know that there will be a logo, navigation
links and graphical links to social media like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Let’s add them too.
Along with the header, we also added items related to footer and side navigation. You must agree that this is much better than a simple list of items. Let’s re-visit the map and make it even better.
Here we moved all the pages under sub-pages section. Similarly, you can add more items and arrange them in a way they should be.
You can create a mind map using pen and paper. However, there are free and commercial applications to help you build such maps. Some of the applications even let you track the progress of each items.
Mind mapping is very powerful tool to represent your idea visually. It also helps relating one item to another.
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 9
It's been a year and a half since I've been using Linux based Operating System (Ubuntu). I came across many hurdles and obstacles when I was a newbie for this platform, but, I am quite comfortable now. I can solve the problems myself and can work with Linux OS without any hindrance. My journey with Linux is an amazing experience. The first time I was encountered with Linux was when I was in the first semester and it was the first time I saw Ubuntu installed in our DWIT lab’s server. I was so
fascinated by its mechanism and its GUI feature. Then and there I decided that I will install Ubuntu on my laptop. When I first installed it, I had no idea what Linux was meant for. So, I did some research and found many amazing things that we can do with Linux. I installed Ubuntu alongside windows OS by viewing the dual boot tutorials from YouTube. Then I started learning some basic commands of Linux from the Internet. One thing you must remember, if you plan to use any Linux based OS then you are about to face many problems related to it. And the best way to solve those problems is through the Internet. Nobody taught me how to use Ubuntu. I taught it to myself.
Talking about the present situation, I find my seniors and juniors crazy about Linux, which is a nice thing actually. Likewise, I see many of my friends ask me to instruct them how to use Ubuntu. But that's not the way you learn to use Linux based OS. The Internet is your best tutor. Everyone can learn how to use Linux based OS if you are really willing to. So, my advice for anyone who is willing to use Linux based OS is, just install it and play with it. I am sure you will face many problems but don't worry, the whole Internet is there to aid you. Again, if you think you are going to use Windows OS for the rest of your life – “think again”; there's the Linux world out there. Nevertheless, I also want to mention some points on why you should choose Linux over windows.
First and foremost, it's entirely free.
Forget about computer viruses Forget about drivers
Why use pirated software if you get free software’s for
Linux platform for free Run windows application
in Linux as well Has the support of a
worldwide community of developers who contribute to the source code, security fixes and system enhancements.
Regular Updates
My journey with Linux-Ubuntu by Sagar Giri
Some Best Linux OS among DWIT students:
1. Ubuntu
2. Linux Mint
3. Fedora
4. Red Hat Linux
5. Elementary OS
6. openSUSE
“The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it.” -Linus Torvalds
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 10
When we hear the term GPS, we get an image of a device showing a map, our path and our current location. We all can now facilitate ourselves with its service by having it installed in our smart phones, or in our cars of course, or by just buying one GPS navigator. I reckon that many of us have used GPS, at least once in our life in one way or another, and so, have been able to familiarize ourselves with its uses. Expounding its benefits, it helps us a lot with finding the path when we get lost or in determining the shortest way to take to get to our destination. Furthermore, we don’t have to take those big and
boring maps for tracing all the required paths. GPS has, of course, made our lives easier. However, few of us know how it works and what type of science and technology it uses for disseminating its users with accurate information.
Before knowing about the working principle of GPS, let us get some idea of its history. GPS was invented by the US Department of Defense (D.O.D) in 1960 for military purposes with the aim of preventing the soldiers from getting get lost in deserts or in wars. It was also used in missiles and to keep track of the submarines. Then, it was made public in May of 2000 to help us all get acquainted with and make use of its benefits. The U.S. Air Force develops, maintains, and operates the GPS system.
As of now, there are 30 GPS satellites orbiting the Earth from which only 24 are functional and
the rest are for backup purposes, that is, to be used in case any satellite malfunctions or fails. These satellites are located in such a way that at any moment, no matter from where we are, we can have at least 4 satellites above us. So next time when you look at the clear sky at night and see some star like structures moving at a certain speed, then be sure that it’s the
GPS satellite above you.
The GPS system works following a mathematical theory called Trilateration. Trilateration is the process of determining exact or relative locations by measurement of distances, using the geometry of circles, spheres or triangles. It’s
like drawing three circles and the intersection of those three circles is the location. Not only trilateration, there’s one big science in GPS, and
that is none other than Time. Yeah! You heard it right. Time has a great role in enabling the GPS system to run accurately because without the perfect sync of time between your GPS device and the satellite, you are going to get lost, I mean, GPS won’t work properly. The reason
there should be a perfect sync of time can be described using the
relativity theory of our great scientist, Albert Einstein, which explains that gravity affects time i.e. time near the Earth is slower than the time on the space. So if the time of our GPS devices doesn’t match with the time of
satellite it’s going to malfunction
and won’t show us the right
direction. Thus, perfect sync of time is crucial in GPS system. To make the time equal in both Earth and Space, Satellite uses the Atomic Clock. Atomic Clock measures the time of electron to revolve round the nucleus and convert it in seconds. Since the time required by the electron to revolve round its nucleus is same in this whole universe and is not affected by any other external gravitational force, we get a perfect sync of time. Furthermore, for the Earth GPS devices the perfect time is given by the GPS towers and the satellites too.
Remember I told you that we get 4 satellites at any moment? 4 is because 3 satellites are used to find the coordinates of the point or person using trilateration (3 spheres by satellites and 1 sphere is acted itself by the Earth) and the fourth one makes sure that everything is going well. Satellites throw some radio waves along with some data that travel at almost the same speed as the speed of light. These are then captured by our GPS devices on the Earth to find the location. And with the good team effort of 4 satellites, we get an amazing result of our position on Earth. With the advancement of GPS system we can also track down our motion, our speed and even our altitude.
Global Positioning System (GPS)
by Rishav Bhurtel
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 11
Human beings are, by far, the most
intelligent species to have ever
walked on the Earth. We are also
the ones who have
exploited her the
most. We have
progressed a lot from
the time of the
prehistoric humans to
the all-conquering
social beings for
which nothing is
impossible. All
through the time of
our progress, we have
consumed more from
nature than have given to it and
have severely depleted the quality
of the environment. But today, we
stand at a point where (because of
our intelligence), we have to
choose either to stay still or to
progress even more. Industries are
the symbols of human
development, but when it comes to
environment, industries are the
ultimate villains. We are striving to
find a balance between industries,
our achievements and the
environment, our only home. But,
is this balance achievable or even
feasible?
Since the time of the industrial
revolution, industries have been the
propellers of human progress. The
money generated by its industries
today runs almost every country.
The prerequisite for every industry
are the raw materials, which come,
in one way or the other, from
nature. So, the more the industries
flourish, the more natural resources
are used up. Growing industries
need more and more resources,
which mean faster depletion of
resources. Also, as population
grows, industries are expected to
produce more, which they do by
exploiting the environment even
more.
Many medicines
are obtained from
rare plants and
herbs. When the
population
increases, the
demands for these
medicines will also
increase, which in turn will have
direct impact on the extinction of
the plants that they are obtained
from.
The growing number of industries
requires a large amount of power to
function seamlessly and smoothly.
The increased amount of power
consumption will increase the
carbon emissions, which have
already reached dangerous levels.
The emissions enhance the effects
Can the needs of industries and environment ever be balanced?
by Nikita Gautam
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 12
of global warming and the
environment is badly affected.
If we choose to protect the
environment instead, we have to
cut the emissions of
greenhouse gases first.
It will mean that
vehicles will have to be
used less often or not at
all. This is not an easy
thing to do. Our daily
life will come to a
virtual standstill if there
are no taxis, buses or
Airplanes to board.
Even if we do manage
with much less vehicles
by walking or cycling, the big
industries will not. Many multi-
national companies like Toyota,
Ford, General Motors, Kia and
many others will go out of
operation. This will have serious
repercussions on the economy of
the world.
Using fuel-efficient cars can
reduce carbon emissions.
However, these cars are more
expensive than normal cars and are
not suitable for mass-production.
The Tata Nano is a car
manufactured in India, which is
very cheap. It costs less than a
thousand dollars. Toyota’s fuel-
efficient hybrid automobiles are no
matches for the Nano as they are
and will be preferred by majority of
the population. Thus, Toyota
cannot mass-produce hybrid cars
just for the sake of environment.
Much work is being done these
days to protect the environment
while ensuring that industries do
not go out business. We are using
more renewable source of energy
– the wind and solar energy. We
are increasing the use of bio-fuel
instead of petroleum fuel day by
day. People are becoming more
eco-conscious and taking radical
steps to conserve the
environment. Many people walk
to work and avoid using vehicles
as far as possible. It is believed that
one in every five person cancels his
flight every week in the UK for
reasons related to the environment.
However, all of this work is not
effective if not carried out on a
large scale. The use of bio fuel is
not sensible in the context of food
shortages around the world. The
wind and solar energy are not ready
to replace petro-energy yet. Thus,
in the present context and with the
present day technology, finding a
balance between industrial
development and environmental
protection is very difficult, if not
impossible as progress in one leads
regress in the other.
“CUTTING A TREE DOWN
DOESN'T KILL IT; IT ERASES IT
FROM HISTORY.”
― THE WOMBAT
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 13
ALAN TURING
Alan Mathison Turing (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, computer scientist, mathematical biologist, and marathon and ultra-distance runner. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalization of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence."
During World War II, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's code breaking center. For a time he led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bombe method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. Winston Churchill said that Turing made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory in the war against Nazi Germany. Turing's pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in several crucial battles.
ENIAC
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) was the first electronic general-purpose computer. It was Turing-complete, digital, and capable of being reprogrammed to solve "a large class of numerical problems".
ENIAC was initially designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory. When ENIAC was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a "Giant Brain”. It had a speed of
one thousand times that of electro-mechanical machines. This computational power, coupled with general-purpose programmability, excited scientists and industrialists.
THE BICYCLE THIEF
Bicycle Thieves (Italian: Ladri di biciclette), also known as The Bicycle Thief, is director Vittorio De Sica's 1948 story of a poor father searching post-World War II Rome for his stolen bicycle, without which he will lose the job which was to be the salvation of his young family.
Adapted for the screen by Cesare Zavattini from a novel by Luigi Bartolini, and starring Lamberto Maggiorani as the desperate father and Enzo Staiola as his plucky young son, Bicycle Thieves is one of the masterpieces of Italian neorealism. It received an Academy Honorary Award in 1950 and, just four years after its release, was deemed the greatest film of all time by Sight & Sound magazine's poll of filmmakers and critics; fifty years later the same poll ranked it sixth among greatest-ever films. It is also one of the top ten among the British Film Institute's list of films you should see by the age of 14.
IMDb Ratings: 8.4/10
“WHAT A
WONDERFUL
WORLD"
"What a Wonderful World" is a song written by Bob Thiele (as "George Douglas") and George David Weiss. It was first recorded by Louis Armstrong and released as a single in 1967. Thiele and Weiss were both prominent in the music world (Thiele as a producer and Weiss as a composer/performer). Armstrong's recording was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. The publishing for this song is controlled by Memory Lane Music Group, Carlin Music Corp., and Bug Music, Inc.
Release Date: 1967
Duration: 2:21
Genre: Jazz Vocal / Traditional pop
Writer(s): -Bob Thielean
-George David Weiss
Vocal: Louis Armstrong
BLAST FROM THE PAST
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 14
Kurt Cobain, lead singer and
guitarist of the American grunge
band, was born on February 20,
1967 in Aberdeen. Now he has
been dead for several years and his
death has almost been forgotten.
The media was preconditioned to
accept not just the death of Kurt
Cobain but also his suicide. A
majority of people believe that
Kurt had committed suicide. But,
simply by relying on the news of
the Seattle newspaper, it is wrong
to consider that he had committed
suicide. At least, he did not die
according to some of the so-
promoted wrong
unbelievable notions. It
was reported in the D-1
that Kurt shot himself
on the left temper and
exited at night, yet there
was no blood on the
floor or in his body. It
was reported that Kurt
used a 20 gauze
shotgun, about four
times as powerful as
44 magnum which in
itself seems extreme
and is capable of
blowing one’s head off. At the
same time, report too showed that
there was a trickle of blood on his
right ear. At such a close range,
would there be any remnants of his
head if he had shot himself with
such a powerful gun? But it only
left a little blood on the ear. This is
something to ponder upon!
Another report was about the
heroin found in Kurt’s body. If he
was intending to kill himself, what
was the purpose of using a huge
doze of heroin and the deadly gun?
Though some say that he wanted to
be euphoric still have strength to
concentrate mentally kills himself?
The suicide note, surprisingly, was
not found near the dead body, and
the letter seemed more like a letter
to the editor.
What do you think? Was he killed
or murdered???
RIP Kurt Cobain. Your music
keeps you alive.
“Murder or Suicide?” by Rojina Shrestha
I'D RATHER BE HATED FOR WHO I AM, THAN LOVED FOR WHO I AM NOT.
- KURT COBAIN
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 15
The vagrant who died yesterday
by Shristi Bhattarai
Until yesterday he was nothing but a vagrant,
a slight stench of disaster lingered around him.
He walked around with a gunny-sack
slung over his shoulders,
and spoke of things nobody understood.
We were his witnesses but we didn’t care
or were hateful or despondent.
Us,
and the stars that always shine indifferently
and the leaves clothed in the driest dust
in a city that has burnt under the scorching sun for months
and the dogs with mange and longing in their eyes
that follow even a suggestion of love
he was one of them.
We did not love him
we stared, or avoided looking at him
or looked, and shook a little, and turned away
Today there is no gap where he used to stand
he slipped through cracks that only the trees and the dogs and the stars can see.
only the gaping black hole he fell into stares from somewhere out of sight.
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 16
“Nobody should call them a
professional if they only know
one language.”
One of my mentors once told me,
“A programming language is just a
programming language. It doesn't
matter if you're a good
programmer, it's the syntax that
matters”. Nobody should call them
a professional if they only know a
language. I indeed reckon it’s true
when I consider the web
developers. They have to work in
several languages and frameworks.
More computer
languages could have
been created in the last
hundred years than the
total number of spoken
languages that have ever
existed. But what are
some of the most
important languages
among those thousands available?
Why is it necessary for a non-
programmer to have a knowledge
of programming languages? Are all
programming languages same and
just are different syntactically? No,
actually different languages have
different purposes and different
techniques for solving the
problems. Functional languages
are for high-performance
numerical computation. While
some are special-purpose
programming language such as
SQL, used for designing relational
databases and some are markup
languages, that is, different
languages have different purposes.
Bjarne Stroustrup: The 5
Programming Languages You
Need to Know
Bjarne Stroustrup is a Danish
computer scientist, most notable
for the creation and development of
the widely used C++ programming
language.
Question: What are the five most
important languages that
programmers should know?
Bjarne Stroustrup: First of all,
nobody should call themselves a
professional if they only know one
language. And five is a good
number of languages to know
reasonably well. And then you'll
know a bunch, just because you're
interested, because you've read
about them, because you've written
a couple of little programs. But
five isn't a bad number. Some of
them books between three and
seven. Let's see, well my list is
going to be sort of uninteresting
because it's going to be the list of
languages that are best known and
useful, I'm afraid. Let's see, C++,
of course; Java; maybe Python for
mainline work. And if you know
The 5 programming languages you need to know by Binod Aryal
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 17
those, you can't help knowing sort
of a little bit about Ruby and
JavaScript, you can't help
knowing C because that's what fills
out the domain and of course C-
Sharp. But again, these languages
create a cluster so that if you knew
either five of the ones that I said,
you would actually know the
others. I haven't cheated with the
numbers. I rounded out a design
space. It would be nice beyond that
to know something quite weird
outside it just to have an
experience, pick one of the
functional languages, for instance,
that's good to keep your head
spinning a bit when it needs to. I
don't have any favorites in that
field. There's enough of them.
And, I don't know, if you're
interested in high-performance
numerical computation, you have
to look at one of the languages
there, but for most people that's just
esoteric.
Larry Wall: 5 Programming
Languages Everyone Should
Know
Larry Wall is a computer
programmer and author, most
widely known as the creator of the
Perl programming language and
Camelia, the spunky spokesbug for
Perl 6.
Question: What are the five
programming languages
everyone, even non-
programmers, should know
about and why?
Larry Wall: Oh, boy, that's a
really tough question. It's kind of
like asking what are the five
countries you should know about if
you're not interested in geology, or
geography, or politics, and the
answer varies depending on what
your actual interests are, or what
are the five companies you should
know. And the answer changes
over time, too. Back when I was
getting started, to these many
decades ago, the answers would've
been Fortran, Cobalt, Basic,
Lisp, and maybe APL, and those
were very formative languages
back then and people learned a lot
from those, but these days, it might
be more important for you to know
JavaScript, even if the only reason
you know that is that you know
whether or not to click the "enable
JavaScript" button in your browser.
But JavaScript is a nice,
lightweight, object-oriented
language and that's why it can fit in
a browser and do these things such
as run little programs that help you
input your data and then send it off
to a web server somewhere.
There are heavier-weight object-
oriented languages and the
elephant in the room is sort of
Java, you can't really make a list of
modern languages without talking
about it. Java is sort of the Cobalt
of the 21st century, I think. It's kind
of heavyweight, verbose, and
everyone loves to hate it, though
not everyone will admit that. But
managers kind of like it because it
looks like you're getting a lot done,
you know, if 100 lines of Java code
is to accomplish a task, then it
looks like you've written 100 lines,
even though in a different
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 18
language, it might only take 5 lines.
You know, it's like, you know, you
can eat a 1-pound steak or you can
eat, you know, 100 pounds of shoe
leather and you feel a greater sense
of accomplishment after the shoe
leather, but, you know, maybe
they're some downsides.
But also, because it is sort of
considered an industrial language
and programmers are sort of
interchangeable parts, managers
like it for that reason, and for that
reason, a lot of Java jobs have been
outsourced from the United States.
Oh, what other languages? I think
going in a different direction,
coming more from academia, we
have a language like Haskell,
which we call a functional
programming language. That
means function in a mathematical
sense, not in the sense the other
languages are dysfunctional. But a
function mathematically has an
input and an output and it maps to,
you know, with a great deal of
mathematical certainty what those
are. Haskell is one of those
languages that mathematician-
type-minded people love; it's sort
of a language for geniuses, by
geniuses. So you should probably
know about it, if only to be able to
say, "Well, is this kind of like
Haskell?" And if so, then you
know you have to hire some really
smart people to program in it.
Haskell is sort of a modern kind of
Lisp in that sense.
What else? Well, we can't leave off
modern languages without talking
about C. The C language, that's
just spelled with the letter C, is
actually about 40 years old, but
people have tried to replace C with
other languages that are like it and
have by and large not succeeded
because C is a very minimalist
language and very close to the
metal, as we say, on a machine, and
lets you get down and do very fine
grain stuff, very efficiently, but it's
a lot of hard work. But once you've
done that work, you can run it
pretty much everywhere. So
almost all the other languages that
you see, Java, Perl, whatever,
actually if you look down
underneath, they're actually
implemented in C, or in a closely
related language. So that continues
to be a very fundamental language,
if only because everyone is trying
to reinvent it and not succeeding in
doing so.
And finally, for a fifth language,
well, you'd probably want to pick
one of the scripting languages.
There's several to choose from,
there's Python, there's Ruby, but of
course, I am prejudiced in favor of
Perl, because I think it has the
liveliest community and because
we have intentionally been
redesigning it lately to leapfrog all
the other languages. For the last
number of years, we've been
redesigning it to out all the warts
that we've noticed over time. And
we figured it was just our one
chance to break backward
compatibility, break the things that
need breaking, keep all the things
that make Perl, Perl, keep it a joy to
use, and with this redesign, and
make it a language that will be able
to be useful and enjoyable for
decades. And so I'd recommend
Perl, but I'm known to be
prejudiced in the matter.
Interview is based upon Big Think
<http://bigthink.com>
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 19
Some programming languages
that every programmers or
computer person should know:
1. C Language
Developed by Dennis Ritchie at
Bell labs in 1972, C language is an
ancestor to many of the advanced
programming languages such as
C++, Java, C#, JavaScript, and
Perl. Since C is the base of most of
the other languages, it is the first
programming course offered in
universities considering that it’ll
pave way for learning other
languages. C is mostly used for
developing hardware level
applications since it is the
language closest to hardware
configuration amongst other
languages, excluding assembly
language.
2. C++ Language
C++ language was developed in
1983 to address the lack of object
orientation in C language. So, it’s
the object oriented version of C.
This widely used language has
contributed in developing
wonderful applications like
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox,
Winamp, and the complete suite of
Adobe Software. Due to its quick
processing and compilation
mechanism, it has been used in the
development of games and
operating systems – like windows.
Furthermore, C++ developers
have high demand in the job
market with the number of
vacancies is growing every year.
3. Java
Developed by James Gosling, at
Sun Microsystems, in 1990, Java
further adds to the capabilities and
features of C and C++ language.
Java is the first purely object
oriented programming language.
The principle of WORA i.e.
“Write Once Run Anywhere” in
Java adds to the portability of it.
Java source code needs to be
written once and then it can run on
any machine where JVM (Java
Virtual Machine) is installed; It
can be executed irrespective of the
underlying operating system and
hardware in the machine.
Java language is a must learn
language for every programmer
used to develop enterprise level
application and video games; it
can be employed to develop web
based applications when used with
JSP (Java Server Pages). Java has
a huge job market with attractive
incentives.
4. C#
C# which belongs to the
Microsoft’s family of
programming language was
developed in 2000. It was the part
of the first ever release of
Microsoft’s prestigious .NET
framework. Similar to Java in
terms of capabilities, it has been
said that C# combines the
robustness of C++ with the
advanced features of Java. It is
extremely easy to switch from C#
to Java and vice versa, provided
you’re good at Java.
It is used to develop a majority of
software applications that come
with Visual Studio IDE. If one is
developing a dynamic web based
application in ASP.NET, he/she
will be required to code in C# or
VB for handling back-end
mechanism. If one is developing a
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 20
Windows form application or a
Windows Presentation Foundation
(WPF) application or Windows
Phone App, he/she will be
required to code in C#. So, if
anyone is up to developing
applications for Windows-based
platforms, C# is something he/she
should consider.
The job market for C#
programmers is also good and one
can find a profitable job being a
C# programmer.
5. Objective C
Initially developed at Apple by
Brad Cox and Tom Love in 1983,
Objective C was to address the
deficiencies in C language. The
major inadequacy in C language
was its inability to perform object
orientation. This incited many
developers to devise languages
that incorporate object oriented
paradigm such as C++ and Object-
C. However, the latter has gained
immense popularity due to its use
in developing applications for
Apple’s iPhone and iPad.
Fair knowledge of Objective-C
will be helpful in getting a job in
companies that develop Apple
based software applications. In
addition to that, freelance industry
also has huge demand for
Objective-C coders across the
globe.
6. PHP
PHP, developed in 1995, is used to
make dynamic websites. It is a
server-side scripting language
which means that PHP code is
processed on the server and the
end result is sent to the users of the
website in the form of plain
HTML.
PHP is an open-source language
which means that there are
thousands of already built
modules that can be modified to
achieve the desired functionality.
Also, PHP is easy to learn; one
simply needs to embed the code
inside HTML. There are a number
of PHP platforms available,
including WordPress, Joomla and
Drupal, which helps in the
development of websites even
more conveniently. For anyone
planning for a web developer’s
career, PHP can be a good choice.
PHP is also avital part of the
famous LAMP (Linux Apache
MySQL and PHP) platform that
Facebook, Yahoo, and other
famous websites use. PHP has a
huge job market, though not much
highly paid when compared to
ASP.NET developers; however
they easily find decent jobs.
7. JavaScript
It is true that server side
programming languages are
appropriate for developing
complex web based application.
But executing everything in server
loads up the server. Considering
this, developers allot some part of
the functionality to the client side
and for this purpose JavaScript is
used. JavaScript, a client side
programming language, runs
inside a client browser and process
commands on client computer
rather than on the server. This
results in significant decrease in
the load on the server and increase
in the execution speed of the
application. Designed by
Netscape, Javascript is used in the
development of almost every
website.
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 21
JavaScript alone will not help one
get a job. However, if one is
looking forward to pursue a career
in web development, JavaScript is
a language to be chosen along with
some advanced server side
scripting language.
8. Python
Developed by Guido Van Rossum
in 1991, Python is a high level
programming language which is
simple, easily learnable and
readable. It wasn’t a popular
language in the past, but now, it
has gained popularity. It might be
because of Google’s investment in
it in the past 10 years or so.
Some famous sites that run on
Python are pinterest.com,
instagram.com, rdio.com. Since it
has web based frameworks, it is
easy to build web based apps using
Python. Django is one such
platform which powers the sites
aforementioned.
9. SQL
SQL, acronym of Structured
Query Language, is not a
development language; instead, it
is a database query language.
SQL, which is closer to the
English language in terms of
syntax, is extremely easy to learn
and use and is a standardized way
of interacting with the underlying
database of an application. Almost
every application has a back-end
database and in order to interact
with that you will need to have
sound knowledge of SQL. Similar
to Javascript, SQL alone is not that
beneficial in terms of job
placement; however, good
knowledge of SQL can help one
stand out of the crowd. But no
SQL db are consider as the future
of data base management system.
10. Ruby
Simple and readable programming
language mainly focused on
developing web-based
applications, Ruby was designed
by Yukihiro Matsumoto in 1995.
Ruby powers Ruby on Rails, a
web development framework on
which numerous well known
websites such as Github, Scribd,
Yammer, Shopify, and Groupon
have been developed. Ruby,
regarded as combination of some
of the most famous features of
Lisp, Pearl and Eiffel, has got a
good job market and Ruby
developers are being paid quite
well at the moment.
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 22
A virtual private network on the surface comprises of three powerful words. Powerful because the deadly combination
of “virtual”, “private” and “network” integrates to produce a revolutionary technique for communication and
transmission of data. The words “private network” offers user to privately communicate and exchange stack of
information thereby committing to chain one's information. Bringing in the twist, the word “virtual” in “virtual private
network” manages to extend the life of this networking technique by attaining cost efficient property. Summing up
these separate definitions, we may define a virtual private network as a network that uses shared public infrastructures
like Internet while securing one's private information through procedures such as tunneling, encrypting the data at
sending and receiving end with additional security procedures.
Using a VPN is the accelerating need for the organizations so as to assure their information remains sealed and doesn't
go viral on the web. Virtual Private Network remains robust at this date of data transmission also because it
superintends to make the Internet more open. As of now, numerous domains remain region specific meaning these
websites can be accessible within certain territory or for example by white enclaves and some by male enclaves only.
With the celestial power of VPN, you may enjoy watching a comedy movie on netflix although it is not available for
your country.
When you use the Internet, you type in the address of the domain you want to access or click on a link to open that
page. This is termed as a request. Along with the request goes the unique identifier so that the server recognizes where
to send the information. This unique identifier is your “IP”. Internet Protocol address is similar to your home address
in an out-of-computer life – it identifies who you are on the web. Sites such as Netflix, hulu etc. have a system in
place that checks the request made, so as to determine whether or not the IP falls in some range. This helps determine
which country the request is made from. Based on this, the user is either allowed or denied access to its services. This
is where VPN comes into play.
When you use a VPN, you connect to another server which lets you browse Internet through it. That means you
will be using an IP that is assigned to you by the VPN server. So, in essence, it is allowing you to hide your IP, your
identity and browse the web securely, without letting others know who you are – because as mentioned earlier, an
IP address can be mapped to a real home address. Unlike a proxy server, which most of you might have heard of, a
VPN allows you to hide your IP in all of the programs that you use. A proxy server does the same thing as VPN, but
you can only use it on a web browser, whereas when you connect to a VPN, every program that accesses Internet in
your computer will be using the IP that is assigned to you by the VPN server.
Virtual Private Network
By Bhishan Bhandari
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 23
“What if and I Just Wish” are the
phrases I prefer the most. Most of
the time I find myself inundated
with thoughts like What if this had
happened? What if I had done
that? I wish today was a holiday.
Once, as I was scrolling down my
Facebook Newsfeed, an upsetting
thought pricked my mind, “WHAT
IF we woke up and realized
THERE WAS NO
FACEBOOK?!”
Let alone reality, merely thinking
about the question makes me
frantic, distraught and distressed.
Really, what will people do if it
happens for real? Most of the
people would get frustrated and
bored. Even some of them might
react like the world no more exists.
How would we overcome the grief
of our dared Facebook's death? I
wonder how long would the trauma
of the untimely demise of
Facebook, provided it occurs in
reality, last? Would we be able to
overcome that grief?
I reckon we all have developed
a kind of addiction to Facebook.
The first thing that a majority of
people, or let’s say youngsters, to
keep it more specific, nowadays do
after they wake up is signing into
their Facebook account. And the
entire day, they keep on checking
their profiles and Newsfeed,
refreshing time and again, every
single minute they are free. The
number of times one signs into
his/her Facebook account till they
go to bed at night is difficult to
figure out. The situation has now
become something like, if someone
logs out of his/her Facebook
account getting bored, they can’t
resist that action for more than 5
minutes and ultimately log in
again. I know I am telling this
bluntly. It is because I experience it
myself. I too am one of the many
irons magnetized by Facebook. I
must say, we have been completely
VPN is on the rise these days because it lets you combat increasing Internet censorship. It also provides an extra
layer of security that enhances safety of on-line activities. VPN can not only secure daily Internet access, but also
can help to optimize the network speed. Actively VPN services has been a means to bypass some websites access
limits and protect users' on-line identity.
What if Facebook shuts down??? by Asmita Subedi
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 24
blindfolded by Facebook and we
merely see anything around us,
except it. We inform the entire
world about how we’re feeling,
expose them, known or unknown,
about our relationship status, and
give them authority to comment on
our pictures or videos or anything
personal. I think we consider
Facebook as our diary, noting
down every little issue. We have
been completely paralyzed by
Facebook addiction. Candidly, it
has become a new, a different
oxygen in the world.
Now, let us draw our attention
towards the hypothetical death of
Facebook. Seriously, what would
people do if there was no
Facebook? The greatest frustration
might be that people cannot receive
likes and comments on their photos
or statuses. And probably, they
would be carrying their bunch of
photographs or statuses, walking
around, showing them to every
person and asking whether he/she
likes them or not?, asking them for
comments? Man, this sounds
crazy. Imagine, people running
over the street to spread their
Newsfeed, bumping into people to
poke them or breaking their
window panes to write on their
walls. This indeed sounds funny.
However, on a serious note, we
would no longer be able to chat
with our friends and family. The
other way round, there would be no
late night chats and desired
disturbances anymore. Next up,
people would forget all the birth
dates of their closed ones because
Facebook will no longer be there to
notify them. There would no more
be availability of mere means of
distraction and everyone would be
considering their own business.
And maybe, I too would be
studying more seriously rather than
spending hours and hours
Facebooking.
Having a deeper gaze into the
Facebook world, we can find out
that the reality is indeed
flabbergasting. We will all realize
that we are simply wasting our
valuable time doing useless stuff
and are just merrymaking with
some temporary fun through
Facebook. If the Facebook death
was for real, we would be spending
more time doing amazing things
like spending time, not through
virtual means like Facebook, but in
reality, with our loved ones,
enjoying our hobbies, our works,
giving way to our passion, etcetera.
Guess what? If Facebook stops, the
world will not suffer. I believe,
people will discover new things to
do. It is because changes are
evident and humans have power of
adaptability.
LET ALONE REALITY, MERELY THINKING ABOUT THE QUESTION MAKES ME FRANTIC, DISTRAUGHT AND DISTRESSED. REALLY, WHAT WILL PEOPLE DO IF FACEBOOK SHUTS DOWN FOR REAL?
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 25
Answer: (Fun with Programming)
1D A T A T Y P E 2 S
4T 6P O
8 R 3S E M I 10C O L O N R
E R O I T
F N M N I
E A M T N
R R 5N E S T E D G
E Y N R
N T
7 C O N S T A N T
E 9 S T A T E M E N T
THE DEERWALKER | Issue IV 26
The Deerwalker
club
Deerwalk Institute of Techonology
Kathmandu, Nepal deerwalker@deerwalk.edu.np
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