[Forwarding without prejudice -- Raju] Respected Sir / Madam,
I am writing this message to seek help regarding an initiative for the true and total empowerment of vernacular medium students in India in the field of Information Technology. This relates to the development of vernacular free open source OS (DOS in Hindi, Bangla, Gujrati etc.) and programming languages (C, C++, lex, yacc, assembly, Java, Prolog etc. in Hindi, Bangla, Gujrati etc.). This is the first time ever that such software has been successfully developed, even though there have been many research groups working on it for decades now. What is more important is that all this software has been released as 'free' for the benefit of the vernacular medium students. I have no financial interests from it. I have attached the original announcement with this message, along with another message discussing some important topics regarding feasibility issues concerning such effort. The kind of support I expect may be in any form (coding, awareness, sponsorship, advertisements etc.). There is one specific manner in which one can contribute greatly, with or without involving me as outlined below. 1) Adopt the vernacular IT initiative for a school or college in one's own hometown. 2) Arrange for a few computers (even old second hand one's can support the software I have developed, so you may donate old ones). This software "does not" require any add on hardware or commercial software for supporting Indian vernacular display, OS and programming languages. You will have to contact the school or some concerned organisation for the actual transfer. As about me, I am a 24 yrs old IT professional and the winner of the Computer Society of India's Eastern Regional Young IT Professional Award 2005 (national rounds are yet to be held, but I'm sure I'll win.) You can view my CV at http://www.indicybers.com/abhishek/ I would finally like to apologise if you find this email unsolicited, and thank you for reading this far. This has been sent to you individually and your name has not been included in any mailing list. This is the only mail you shall receive, unless you wish to further communicate regarding this matter. Regards, Abhishek Choudhary K-6, Tollygunge Police Lines, Kolkata -- 700 033 West Bengal India Mobile: +91-9831369549 Fax: +91-33-24221175 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ======== Mail announcing the availability of FOSS system software in vernaculars (Hindi/Bangla C, C++, assembly, BASIC, LOGO etc.) ========== Respected Sir/Madam, This is to inform you of the availability of the first ever "complete" suite of open-source programming languages for Indian vernaculars. It includes equivalents of C, C++, lex, yacc, assembly, Java etc. in Hindi, Bangla and other vernaculars. Along with this I have also released Hindi and Bangla DOS, including BASIC and Logo for vernaculars. The downloads are available at http://www.indicybers.com These projects have won Computer Society of India's Young IT Professional Award (Eastern region) 2005 (Winner) and 2004 (Special mention), two years in a row. I shall be competing at the 2005 national level now. Some of the innovations of this project include a system for displaying Indic scripts in "true" text-mode. This is done without using any aditional hardware. At no point has any graphical (rasterising) method been used for this. All the required glyphs have been accomodated in the extended ASCII code page, leaving 7-bit ASCII unaltered. This method is applicable to all Brahmi derived composite syllabic Indian scripts. Hindi, Bangla, Assamese and Gujrati scripts have been implemented. Oriya and Punjabi are under development. There are strong suggestions that this may be applicable for South Indian scripts as well. This has made it possible to have BIOS/POST in Indic. Besides, this system being free, it does not add to the procurement cost as compared to commercial products. Another contribution of this project includes a "case and diacritic independent, compiler acceptable" transliteration system. This is completely invertible and is applicable to all Indian languages. This has direct mapping to the IPA and, hence, may be used to develop programming languages in "any" human language. It also has bearings on web technology, as it can allow Indic URLs in IPv4 as well. It may be used to encode even static web-pages, such that if someone does not have the required fonts then one may see the Indic web-page in Roman script transliteration, instead of "boxes" (unicode) or garbage (other encodings), from the same "static" html. Finally, the task of Indic programming language design has not been trivial either. I have also included support for HP printers. The system uses GCC as back-end and is highly portable. There is both ISCII and UNICODE support for all languages, including Hindi/Bangla DOS and the IDE. Necessary filters have been provided for conversions between ISCII, Romenagri, UNICODE, APCISR, HP-PCL etc. The languages have been developed synchronically and, hence, there is a certain level of homogenity in keyword selection across paradigms. The programs written in Indic programming languages are readily converted to their English equivalents and hence may be delivered internationally. There is also support for translation of variable names and rudimentary literate programming. Unreleased languages include Lisp, Prolog, Ada, Pascal, Fortran etc. in Inian vernaculars. They shall be released soon, after the initial testing and verification of license issues. However the availability of lex and yacc makes the issues of targeting specific lanuages quite trivial, and these are already available for download along with C, C++, assembly, BASIC, logo, and Java in Hindi and Bangla. Technologically, Hindi/Bangla C/C++/assembly has been used for robotics and cluster super-computers. Along with this system, I have also released in public domain the design of a natural-interfaced autonomous robot. The languages have also been used to successfully implement a Beowulf cluster. Effort is now being made towards porting Linux kernel sources to Hindi/Bangla C, asm etc. This is aided by the fact that I have also include English-programming-language to Hindi/Bangla-programming-language translators and vice-versa. Sir/Madam, I have released all this software as free open source for the greater benefit of the vernacular literate population of our country. I do not have any financial interests from it. However, I shall appreciate support in any form (including coding, awareness, maintainance, and financial). I am also looking for a suitable job. My experience includes systems programming (compiler design, device drivers, Linux kernel), computational linguistics, embedded systems, C/C++/assembly/Java, medical-informatics, artificial intelligence, and technical writing. Link to my resume: http://indicybers.com/abhishek/ Link to my degree thesis: http://indicybers.com/hindawi/ANGELBot.pdf Link for downloading Indic programming languages: http://www.indicybers.com Link for downloading Indic programming languages paper: http://indicybers.com/hindawi/Hindawi.pdf Link for downloading Indic programming languages presentation: http://indicybers.com/hindawi/Hindawi.ppt Regards, Abhishek Choudhary K-6, Tollygunge Police Lines, Kolkata -- 700 033 West Bengal India Mobile: +91-9831369549 Fax: +91-33-24221175 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ================ Mail discussing important topics ====================== Hello everyone, Thank you for your interest regarding vernacular programming languages. I would like to begin this discussion with a few very valid points raised by Vivek as they provided a good basis for starting a conversation, and along these lines I shall also reflect upon some of my short and long term objectives. The latter, though, deserve a seperate discussion and I would request you to refer to the documents http://indicybers.com/vision2020.html and http://indicybers.com/swatantra.html Topic 1 : Bridging the gap beetween vernacular and English developers Vivek wrote: >I have followed your project for sometime now. Your project stands >between two things. The already ready english based programming >community and the possibly new and developing vernacular developers. >This gap might again be challenge to bridge. Point-> Hindawi(Hindi/Bangla C, C++ etc.) does 'not' create any further divide or gap between vernacular developers and traditional (English) developers. Hindi / Bangla C, C++, Java, assembly etc. get 'readily' translated into their English equivalent. There is also provision for translation of variable names, which certainly is not a trivial task and formed the basis of my interaction with Swami Sarvottamanand, Dean of Research and HOD Comp. Sci. at Belur Math college, who was one of the distinguished judges during the YIPTA event. The reverse, that is, translation of English programming languages and variable names to vernacular programming languages and variable names also takes place 'readily'; (here readily implies without any extra programming effort). So there isn't any new gap that develops between traditional and vernacular developers; only the old ones are bridged. I am working on a system for complete machine translation of documentation as well (a limited scale version should be ready in a month or two.) Explanation-> This has been a very basic consideration during the course of development of Hindawi. This also relates to another concern - that of the utility of vernacular programming languages. Vernacular BASIC and LOGO are fine as paedagogical aids (teaching tools), supposed to be used in the classroom setting or by hobby programmers, (though I must point out that Hindi/Bangla BASIC allows EXE files to be created and C code to be embedded). However, the moment one talks of vernacular C, C++ , lex, yacc or say vernacular Java, one has to consider the fact that learning these languages shall involve a substantial effort. Though it is comparatively simpler for a vernacular literate person than learning their English manifestations. This shall prove meaningless if the skills acquired cannot be used professionally, that is, if they are not marketable enough. And "enough" certainly would include international markets. As metioned earlier, the ready conversion of programs written in vernacular languages to their English counterparts, and vice-versa, solves this problem. For instance, let us consider a possible scenario set in the not-so-distant future. We are in a 2012AD (six years from now), the first mile-stone year in achieving the target of making India an ICT superpower. (By then I'm sure ICT shall stand for Indian Cottage Technology, for indeed, that is what I envision - to make Information and Communication Technology a literal 'cottage' industry in India which shall cater solutions globally, and provide at least some major relief to the unemployment situation. That would be akin to the electronics industry in China today.) A person, say, in the USA needs a piece of software for his new startup. He logs onto the Indian "Software Exchange" (***a new social concept***) website, posts his requirement in the standard format available there, and pays the prescribed fees online (say an advance, with balance to be cleared as and when the final settlements are done). This requirements' document is in a restricted-grammar format and can be translated into a vernacular even with 2005 technology. The vernacular requirements' document is then provided to a vernacular developer as per turn, who may accept or refuse the task; in the latter case, it is handed over to the next developer in queue. The vernacular developer then proceeds with the standard software engineering steps of analysis, coding, testing, etc. He certainly codes in vernacular programming languages and also does the analysis and testing in vernacular. Where input from the end user is needed in the development process, the developer provides the English source code, which as I have pointed out is readily generated by the Hindawi compiler system (which by then shall certainly have improved a lot). As about the English text messages contained in the program; they are converted back into English by the translation process at the Software Exchange. (*** Machine translation is the piece of technology I am focussing my development efforts on now, but for restricted-grammar this has been achieved ***.) The end product is finally provided to the person in the USA, with complete source, variable names, documentation etc. in English. Further work may be handled by either a traditional (English) or vernacular developer. As an aside, I have only skimmed through the description of this scenario. I already have worked on aspects such as what changes to the currently practised software metrics may be needed. Besides, a few new postions may need to be created, and this person-centric scenario should be viewed as a team-centric one. Summary-> There can be complete synergy between vernacular and traditional (English) deveoper communities. Topic 2: Making source code available online and project management site Vivek wrote: >firstly, Please make your source available online. Please use a project >management site savannah.gnu.org, sourceforge.ner or >developer.berlios.de, gforge to name a few. It seems you have tried the demo version. The source code, certainly, is available online and was also carried on CHIP Sept 2005 CD (which carried Hindawi Release 1, current version is Release2). It is included along with the binary distribution (complete package - 40MB and not in the demo or DOS floppy). Seperate distribution for source and binary is desirable, however, many parts of Hindawi are written in Hindawi itself (bootstrapped) and this makes it a more involved task as it would be necessary to provide information regarding which file goes where and does what, and an explanation for the code itself; but again the Hindi/Bangla sources are converted to English equivalent, hence this is not a problem. I shall make the sources available seperately soon. (*** Support needed ***) You may download the following file and install Hindawi from it for the complete distribution. (Installation instructions are given later in this mail.) http://www.indicybers.com/HindawiR2CD.zip As about an online project management site (sourceforge etc.). This is a very important point, and I am considering the viable options (***Support needed***). The plans have been there since the inception of the project, but there have been delays. Personal obligations have further contributed to the delay, but I have tried to keep Hindawi as much on the pre-detremined schedule as possible. Considering the fact that, technologically, the project is complete, it is only the lack of community involvement that is keeping it down, and yes a portal for Hindawi on sourceforge, savannah.gnu etc. is urgently needed. (***Support needed***) Topic 3: Community involvement Vivek wrote >secondly, have been able to bring in any kind of developers( hobby, part >time) to be involved in this process? This is my primary objective today. Hindawi has already reached a point where I'm finding it difficult to manage the project alone. As new languages and technologies are added, the project will require more and more community involvement. The immediate requirement is for documentation (***Support needed***). Lack of proper documentation is proving to be a bit of hindrance. For instance, many people have complained that Hindawi does not start up on their computers. This is mainly because of poor documentation in Release 1, which has been improved in Release 2. Further, every system needs to evolve and that is the very essence of an open-source system. This requires more developers to join in. At the recently concluded Infocom 2005, Hindawi was sponsored by the National Council of Science Museums under a technology scholarship scheme (the greatest 'de-facto' financial help recieved by Hindawi/BangaBhasha till date). This has provided Hindawi with a wonderful platform and many people have expressed their intent to collaborate. However, proper collaboration would intially require me to devote considerable time, and I have been busy with some unavoidable engagements recently (including searching for a somewhat decent job, which I'm yet to find) (***Support needed***). I am also looking at the viability of writing a book (GNU FDL'd) explaining the internals of Hindawi. But again financial constraints are the major hurdle. I would really appreciate some suggestion regarding this matter (***Support needed***). Topic 4: Problems in startup Vivek wrote: >On the sidelines. I have not yet been successful in running it on >windows 2000. This stems from the fact that one normally expects Hindawi to be a GUI based application, but one of the technological achievements of Hindawi has been the ability to display Indic scripts in text-mode, without using any commercial soulution such as GIST card. The feature of Hindawi which allows it to display Indic scripts in text mode, also necessitates that it be started in text mode. In Release1 one had to switch to text mode manually (by pressing Alt-Enter in a DOS box, or booting up in DOS), 'before' starting Hindawi. Even the TDIL people had problems regarding this, because they were switching to text-mode 'after' starting Hindawi. This has been done away with in Release 2. Now running Hindawi.bat automatically switches to text-mode. (The exact details of running Hindawi is given later. Users may still be required to press Alt-Enter if Hindawi starts up in a window instead of full-screen, but the sequence is inconsequential.) I considered the option of having a seperate GUI based based interface for Hindawi, but at the current status of the project too many different interface implementations would Hinder the pace of technologial development. A GUI based interface (like Dev-C++ for MinGW) is highly desirable, and I shall devote some time to it soon. Possibly after the national rounds of the Young IT Prof award. Topic 5: Vernacular programming languages Vivek wrote > I would be interested to look at vernacularized >programming languages .. it allows for a lot of development in many >other fields. Jeebesh wrote > Your contribution to free software looks amazing. Thank you for the appreciation. I hope you will be able to install and try out Hindawi/BangaBhasha with the following instructions. I shall be posting more detailed instructions on the Hindawi group page http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hindawi A) For Hindawi / BangaBhasha (suite of programming languages) 1) Download the necessary zip files from http://indicybers.com For Hindi http://www.indicybers.com/HindawiR2CD.zip For Bangla http://www.indicybers.com/BangaBhashaR1CD.zip 2) Unzip the files to a directory on your computer 3) The package has technical write-up's as PDF files and a voice narrated presentation (PPT) file 4) Go to DOS prompt or DOS box under Windows and switch to the directory where you unzipped the downloaded zip file 5) Run setup.exe 6) Follow on screen instructions (in English and vernaculars) 7) I would suggest you accept the default locations, unless you have some constraints. The total installed foot-print is around 50 MB 8) Setup creates a batch file "hindawi.bat" with the necessary startup script to set up the required environment variables. 9) After installation is completed, start Hindawi by running "hindawi.bat" from the directory of installation. If Hindawi opens up in a window, which it normally should not, press Alt-Enter to switch to full screen mode 10) This will take you to Aadesh - the Hindi command shell. 11) To type in Hindi /Bangla turn Scroll lok on (this is indicated on the low right hand corner of the screen) 12) Hindawi uses INSCRIPT keyboard layout. JPEG file is available online http://www.indicybers.com/devanagari.jpg http://www.indicybers.com/bangla.jpg 13) To start the IDE type "Lekhak" in English or vernacular 14) Once lekhak has started up, you are taken to the welcome page of the online help system 15) To close the help-box press Esc 16) To activate a menu press Alt+Red_lettered_key or use a function key shortcut 17) Press F3 to open the load file dialog 18) Press Tab to go to the file-list section 19) Navigate down with the arrow keys till "samples/" is highlighted and press enter. 20) Similarly select the directory for the language for which you wish to see a program (later you may try writing your own vernacular programs) robot - logo prathmik - BASIC guru - C shraeni - C++ shabda - lex vyaaka - yacc kritrim - Java yantrik - x86 assembly 21) Load the vernacular named files by highlighting their names as above and pressing Enter 22) Follow the following shortcuts to compile and run F5 - Compile + execute F6 - execute a previously compiled program (only in hindi) F7 - prepare a compiled program for deployment F9 - compile only NB: Please navigate down the source files by pressing PageDown as there is a lot of copyright information in the beginning of each 23) To exit lekhak press Alt-X or choose nikaas(exit) from khaata(file) menu 24) To exit Aadesh type exit or nikaas(in vernaular) B) For Bangla / Hindi DOS i) Download and unzip the Hindi/Bangla DOS zip file http://www.indicybers.com/HINDIDOS.ZIP or http://www.indicybers.com/BANG_DOS.ZIP ii) Run mkdisk.bat from the DOS prompt (DOS box under Windows) iii) Follow on-screen prompts (in English) to create a boot disk for Hindi / Bangla DOS iv) Boot up your computer with this. v) The DOS disk has the necessary files for hard-disk installation, but you must be familiar with fdisk etc. Hindi/Bangla DOS setup is not yet ready. Topic 6: Starting a conversation Jeebesh wrote: > We at Sarai are deeply invested in free software and localisation > issues and would really like to start a conversation with you. Thank you for the invitation. Thanks to Vivek for breaking open the topics. Topic 7: Support needed Jeebesh wrote: > What kind of support are you looking for and what kind of developments > you will like to pursue. Sir, I am looking for support in terms of financial grants, besides developers who would like to join into the effort. A lot of support is required in terms of awareness generation.I would appreciate any form of financial support such as financial grant, fellowship, sponsorship, advertisements, co-branding offers, CD distribution offers, book publication offers etc. (Personally I am also in the urgent need of a suitable job, and would appreciate any referrals coming my way.) Regards, Abhishek =========== A Bangla specific mail but it applies to all other vernaculars ================== Hello friends, Let us think of our brothers and sisters who have not been priviledged enough to go to English medium schools. Even they have a right to benefit from the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) revolution. Software is certainly being written for them, but I would liken that to a Mercedes car without a steering wheel. What I mean is that the Bangla software available today is of wonderful quality, like a Mercedes in the world of automobiles, but it only allows a user to perform a predetermined function, hence no streeing wheel. Say the user wants to do something of his own desire, how does he do it? Is DTP the only access we want to provide our vernacular literate brothers and sisters with? Hae Banga bhandaarae taba bibhida ratan, Ta sabe (abodh aami) abahela kori!! The answer lies in providing them with a programming language in the mother tongue. Yes, and that too, one in which even the highest of technical programs may be written, besides of course the simple ones. BangaBhasha is just that. It offers Bangla LOGO and BanglaBASIC for the children and beginners, and Bangla C, Bangla C++, Bangla assembly, Bangla lex, Bangla yacc, Bangla Java etc. for the advanced and professionally inclined. With this they can do any kind of programming, including even robotics and super computing. This software does not require any special hardware, and can also run on an old Pentium I or PII. Friends, help us reach it to the people who need it. You need not pay us anything for this, yes it is truly free. If you know a Bangla medium school, which you certainly do, tell them about it. If you have an old machine donate it to some school, college or social group where it can be used to teach Bangla programming languages. You may even teach someone Bangla programming yourself. You may download Bangla DOS, Bangla C, Bangla C++, Bangla BASIC, Bangla assembly, Bangla lex, Bangla yacc and many other systems tools in Bangla from http://www.indicybers.com/ben_index.html or from the page http://www.indicybers.com If you are concerned about how good it really is, then may I humbly inform you that it has won the Young IT Professional Award (E) 2005 from Computer Society of India. Please remember "Matribhasha rupi khoni, purna mani jaale"! Regards, Abhishek Choudhary email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone : +91-9831369549(Kolkata mobile) _______________________________________________ Message sent via/by Savannah http://savannah.nongnu.org/ _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
