I’ve been working here in Trivandrum for last 5+ years. I never felt anything good in this place except the job opportunities of Techno Park and some tourist spots around here.

In the weekends, we used to go and watch newly released movies in theatres next to us. Let me tell few words about the theatres around here. Even we’ve a fantastic movie, how it’s possible to entertain us when we’re sitting in hell?

The following f**y things are being experienced on every movies I watch in theatres. Let’s go in the sequence

1. 2-3 weeks ago I went to watch the movie, Ayan at Ajantha theatre near Over-bridge. I patiently stood at the end of the queue and waited for some time. After few minutes I saw people are running inside the complex and making another queue. Do you know what’s happening there? Non reservation seats are selling at reservation prices. Those who came first and sweat till this time became fools. The fucky theatre owner will get extra 5/- per ticket. Which is quite illegal but if you need tickets. You should go there.

2. Okay. I required tickets for me and my friends. Now the way up to the theatre. It’s on 4^th or 5^th floor. You need walk slip-sloppy stair case to reach there. (No steps just a slope with smooth tiles). Anyway my friend Vijesh slipped down in between. Kicked his ass and remove the dust there and we reached at door. I don’t know how the old people are coming all this way up to see the movie.

3. Yes I grabbed my seat. Just looked around. The place around our seat appeared as a waste bin and we’re sitting inside it. All the ice cream cups, waste cola bottles etc. Were thrown around here. The theatre management should ensure that. If they would have placed enough waste boxes outside, at least they can reduce this issue.

4. Now let’s talk about the seats. You will be always sitting in torn old seats. In some theatres there are no cushions even in the higher circles. You can never take care of your ass during the movie. All the best.

5. Movies started so does the heat. The A/C is not turned on!!! 90% OF THEATRES NEVER TURN ON A/Cs EVEN IN THIS HOT SUMMER. You will be air-tight wagon containing 1000+ people. They’re charging us all the taxes and other charges including A/C. I’ve removed my shirt after some time (luckily no girls were sitting next to me, to see my hot body: P).

6. It’s interval time, let’s go and get some snacks. You could see that almost every items in the theatre snacks bar charging double of MRP. This is not the case of a theatre it’s happening even with KSFDC‘s (Kerala State Film Development Corporation) Kairal I theatre. For 8/- ice cream charging 15/-. For 8/- cola 12/-. For 5/- popcorn it’s 10/-. Nobody is to control this. Even we ask this to the sales man, he says like “we’re selling for this prices. If you’ve any complaints approach management. They’ve asked us to charge like this. We’re just employees”. Who the HELL gaining this? All these are happening with the knowledge of authorities. There are various departments in govt to ensure all the facilities and services provided at cinema theatres. They’re not doing their duties and also closing eyes towards this day robbery. I’m software professional. I’ve paid by my employer and they’re giving a fixed salary. I’m I getting anything more to support this day robbery? Even in the Techno Park itself there are shops like Chicking, selling cool drinks for an exceeding amount then MRP. They’re also saying the same story. Management asked to do like this. Event raised complaints through Techno Park websites, no action had taken. Once I complained to Trivandrum City Police through their online complaint facility I could not see any visible effect. Is it just for the sake of IT governance? The fact is nobody, including myself is not ready to go behind all these. But I should think like, why we’re paying for govt. authorities? They’ve ensure about this and they’re getting salary for doing their duties.

7. Now go back again to your seat and just finish watching movie in hell.

Various associations and communities in the Malayalam film industry is complaining people are not coming to theatres to watch movies! They are complaining that people are stick with some pirated CDs to watch movies, also the mega TV serials influencing the audience a lot. Even some time back the association has restricted many artists acting in serials. Who will come to fucky place like this to watch movies? People are coming to see the best movies and entertain themselves and filling your pockets with their money. Just do justice at least for what you’re getting.

There’s a simple theory behind every good movie. Strong story, good director, good artists and a good place to enjoy the movie. These are the fundamentals of every successful movie. Even without a strong stories or good comedy, Malayalee people will never accept the film even the heroes are super stars. If the factors are met accordingly people will rush to theatres. Nobody will ever try to get a pirated CD or wait to get the DVD released.

The laws and rules are not strict. No issues we’re supposed to live in this hell. This is not God’s own country just DOGS OWN COUNTRY.

I’m true fan of the book “The Pragmatic Programmer”. The advices and analogies in the book is truly helpful to become a pragmatic programmer.

The book explains the importance of managing your knowledge portfolio as an investor does his investment.

• Invest Regularly – Even it’s very small time, invest your time in learning resources regularly.
• Diversify – The more different things you know, the more valuable you’re. Spend time for learning new multiple technologies
• Manage Risk – Don’t put all your technical eggs in one basket.
• Buy low, sell high – be the early adopter of technology. They will be toppers in the field.
• Review and rebalance – brush up the technologies that you’ve not used in a while

The authors expects few goals from the above guidelines

• Learn at least one new language every year
• Read technical books each quarter
• Read non technical books too
• Take classes at your local community college or university
• Participate in local user groups
• Experiment with different environments like linux, windows, mac etc…
• Stay up to date with technology with right subscriptions for magazines and journals (e.g DDJ )
• Get wired with the latest updates from news groups, papers from web etc…

It’s truly worth reading. Go and get a copy!

I raised following question in stack overflow some time back.

It’s possible to use TRACE macro as printf like function (variable argument list) . If it supports this facility, then why it’s necessary to have TRACE0, TRACE1 and TRACE2 macros except they’re imposing restrictions on number of arguments. Again, I’d like to know if there are any advantages on restricting number of arguments for TRACE macro.

The viewpoints shared by the community members are.

• MFC 4 did not have variadic TRACE statements. That was added in a later version. The old-style TRACEn macros are probably there for backward compatibility.
• The other reason is readability. It isn’t necessary to have the other trace variants (trace1, trace2 etc), but specifying exact number of arguments for a trace function is more readable than infinite number of argument list using TRACE macro

Anyway trace macros are obsolete now. It’s recommended to use ATLTRACE macro instead of TRACE macros. OK here’s quick information on TRACE macros. (See the link above for more info)

To display messages from your program in the debugger Output window, you can use the ATLTRACE macro or the MFC TRACE macro. Like assertions, the trace macros are active only in the Debug version of your program and disappear when compiled in the Release version.

• TRACE0   Takes a format string (Only) and can be used for simple text messages, which are dumped to afxDump.
• TRACE1   Takes a format string plus one argument (one variable that is dumped to afxDump).
• TRACE2   Takes a format string plus two arguments (two variables that are dumped to afxDump).
• TRACE3   Takes a format string plus three arguments (three variables that are dumped to afxDump)