28 February 1999
Copyright, 1999, Max K. Goff, all rights reserved

The event in Rome went well -- eighty or so engineers at a single firm with development offices on the outskirts of the city.  The parent company is a very large Global 2000 firm that is one of Sun's solid partners.  It was a "Sun Day" event -- a day when any number of product managers or lead engineers or field support engineers or evangelists might be called upon to present the Sun story, tailored as needed to the request and needs of the hosting company.  I spoke twice -- once for Java2, once for Jini.  It was a good day.  The thing I thought especially interesting was the request for information about JavaHelp, the extensible help subsystem written in Java.  This seems to me to be a signal of the maturity that Java may be reaching now -- it's now the sweetening technologies that are of interest.  The basis is firm, time to add those things that are expected of an industrial strength platform.  JavaHelp is one of those sweeteners.

Rome is very much as I'd remembered.  I suppose that's to be expected.  With so many years of history, so many civilizations built and rebuilt on that sacred ground between the Tiber and the Euphrates, at this juncture it's not likely that major changes will be noticeable.  At least not in my life time.

I got ill in Rome.  I heard from a cohort there that half of Europe was down with a flu or cold, and as healthy as I tend to be, this time I didn't escape.  It started as a head cold and by the time it was time to leave, it had progressed into my lungs.   I left Rome in the morning and frankly don't remember much of either the flight to Frankfurt or  New Delhi.  I think I slept most of both flights.  I do remember having to hurry in Frankfurt  to catch the New Delhi flight and  I do recall being concerned about my luggage.  Luckily my bag made it to India with me.

All I know of New Delhi is the airport, the short cab ride to the hotel nearby and the room where I slept most of the 30 hours of my stay there -- a combination of illness and jet lag.  By the time it was time to leave for Bangalore, I was feeling much better.

It's always so strange to me to run into people I know in other countries.  I've never gotten used to it, even though it's happened so many times in my software career.  In the late 1980s I had the good fortune to be part of the X/Open standardization work taking place at that time.  A number of computer firms decided it was time to stop the fragmentation of Unix interfaces and agreed to agree upon a standard set of application programming interfaces (APIs) upon with programmers could rely for maximum program portability.  Since there were a number of companies involved (over 20 at its zenith), and companies tended to diverge  from the "vanilla" Unix from AT&T for reasons of competitive advantage, the task of agreeing upon a common set of interfaces became less of a technical problem than a political one.  Hence, a number of meetings were required over a period of several years, producing draft after draft of proposed standards until a final agreement for a given set of interfaces was reached.  I served as the Chairman of the X/Open Kernel Working Group from 1987-90, representing my company (which was Unisys and then Amdahl), as well as providing something in the way of leadership for the group such as to produce a set of  standards in less than glacial time.  But the point of the story is meeting familiar people in foreign lands.

The X/Open Kernel group consisted of one representative each from the participating X/Open firms.  As a rule, the representatives were solid engineers, respected programmers from their side, knowledgeable not only about the inside of the Unix kernel but the challenges application programmers face as well.  Given that it was a  very bright group of people, colored by the political aspects of the situation, it became a management challenge very much  like that of herding cats.  It took a lot of week long meetings to get things accomplished.  And since we represented firms from all over the world, we took turns hosting and had our meetings all over the world.  During my X/Open years, I probably traveled almost as much as I do now.  I remember meetings in Amsterdam, Denver, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, New York, Tokyo, Munich, London, Brussels, Milan, Paris, Copenhagen, Ulrich,  Seattle, Portland, Lake Tahoe -- so many meetings, I doubt I could recall them all.  And in each city, it would be the same basic set of faces.  It was a meeting without a fixed place -- a moveable feast -- and as such, we tended to bond in a different kind of way.  We weren't on the same team, per se, but we did share many of the same kinds of bizarre experiences.  So there was a team of sorts that transcended the situation.  I don't think we could have agreed upon the APIs otherwise.  Without the human side of it, we would not have resolved what was basically technology issues colored by political constraints.  But I could never get used to the idea of seeing people I know in a completely different context each time we meet.

Now that I'm traveling so much again, it's happening again.  I woke up at a very unreasonable hour in New Delhi, still a little spent from my bout with the Roman flu,
and wheeled my bag to the front desk only to see not one but three fellow Sun employees whom I didn't expect to see.  I didn't think I'd see anyone from Sun until I got to Bangalore, where the Sun Technologies Day tour was headed.  Then when we arrived at the New Delhi airport together, there was yet another  familiar Sun face sitting in the lounge waiting for the same flight.

In Bangalore I met up with several members of the Technology Evangelism team, as well as the tour's support team, managers, an executive, press support, etc.  What started as a modest road show less than a year ago as blossomed into quite an event, covered by the press both inside of Sun and the world in general.  That's something that I've started doing more of these past few months: press interviews.  I don't enjoy them as much as speaking.  But writers are an interesting lot in their own right, and I think I'll learn how to be a better interview candidate in time.

I'm not sure how many engineers attended the Bangalore event -- over 600 I'm sure.  Maybe as many as 800.  I didn't take the time to count.  Again, I spoke twice.  I led the parade with a Java2 talk and ended it with Jini.  I tend to get excited when it's a large crowd and even a little religious -- I'm and evangelist after all -- and I've long felt there is something very special about Bangalore and the software being developed there.

Bangalore came into my consciousness around the same time I was doing the X/Open work.  I remember reading about the growing number of Indian software developers actually staying in India rather than leaving for better opportunities abroad, in order to build an industry there, and Bangalore at the time was emerging as the Silicon Valley of that nation.  Since wages were so much lower in India, software could be developed there at much lower costs.  Hence: American programmers beware.  That, at least, was the sense of the first article on Bangalore I'd ever read and the source of my first impression.

I remember when we were discussing the Asian tour for these Sun Technology Days, I was the one who said, "Bangalore.  We need to go to Bangalore."  And while the idea of traveling into the interior of India may be a little frightening to those of us fattened on western culture, I felt it was of vital importance for us to bring the Java message to those engineers.  I didn't quite know why I felt that way at the time.  Now I know.

India is arguably the spiritual center of the planet.  So many world religions have roots there -- the Hindus, the Buddhists -- there are those who claim that Christ went to India at one point in his learning.  There is a strong Moslem community there.  India is one nation on this small planet of (h)ours that hasn't fallen for the McWorld phenomenon.  While other nations buy in to the emerging global culture, India gently holds on to those traditions and values that make up the spiritual core of its people.  If there is one nation that we need when it comes to software, it's India.  It's the spirit of India, the fine critical thinking of her engineers and the patience acceptance of her humanity.  India is vital to the future of software -- and therefore the world.

After speaking in Bangalore I got very ill.  I actually thought I was going to die there.  I hadn't eaten since breakfast, as I generally don't eat before speaking or acting, and I had noticed that my usual travel induced constipation had given way to diarrhea, which was a relief but not a concern.  All day I didn't pay much attention to the churning in my stomach, as I was more aware of the event, the people, and the messages I felt compelled to convey.  But when it was done, when the energy of the event had faded and I met with my teammates for dinner, I felt quite ill and couldn't eat.  I had to excuse myself and retire to my room.

Around midnight I awoke from a light sleep with a terrible chill.  I was shivering, but my head was burning up.  And every part of my body ached.  I started to get concerned when I realized I couldn't will myself to move as easily as is normal -- in fact, I had a difficult time moving at all.  But I did at least have the good sense to call for help.

 I called a team member, Michele, who coordinates all of the speaking engagements for the evangelists.  I'd remembered her asking at dinner if I wanted some antibiotics when I complained of not feeling well.  I declined at the time, but thought better of it now that such serious symptoms had ensued.  So I called Michele.

She was so kind.  She came to my room, saw that I was in a serious state and then called for a doctor.  Much to my surprise, a doctor actually showed up -- can you imagine a doctor in the U.S.A. making a house call in the middle of the night?  He was there in what seemed like a very short time, although in the condition I was in, I can't be certain.  I was starting to get quite delirious due to the fever.  In any event, he did show up, Dr. Khaitan of Bangalore with an MBBS from Bombay.  He was a tall man, late 50s I would guess.  He took my blood pressure, which was quite a bit higher than normal for me, as was my pulse.  But still within a range that is compatible with the sustenance of life.  My temperature was 102 F., which accounted for the raised blood pressure and the racing heart, not to mention the feeling that I would soon explode from the heat in my head and the ache in my joints.  At that point, I was pretty certain that my time had come and that I'd indeed preached my last sermon.  But fortunately for me, neither Michele nor Dr. Khaitan so convinced.

He said I'd be fine...not to worry.  I just got a bug or something -- he wasn't certain.  But he was certain that if I'd take the medicine he'd brought with him, things would return to normal in fairly short order.  Given the circumstances -- a very unfamiliar locale, a doctor not trained in the finest of western traditions, literally half way around the world from anything close to "home," his prognosis only made me more certain that it was my time and I'd be leaving this earthly plane there in India, very unexpectedly and perhaps even with a touch of irony.  But he was right.

I took the pills.  Michele stayed until 3 am, bless her, just to be sure.  Within an hour of the doctor leaving, the chills left... you need to know that I was shivering under two thick blankets in a city where the high temperature that day was around 80 F., and no colder than 60 F. at night.   So the fact that the chills left as the doctor had said gave me a little faith that I'd actually live. Around that same time I asked Michele to call another member of our team to hold my hand so she could leave, as I knew she had plans to leave Bangalore early the next day.  I was so grateful to both her and the doctor, but I could tell she was relieved when Doug got there for the rest of the watch.  I was still quite delirious, but I do remember Doug coming and Michele leaving.

Doug is a fellow evangelist, and a fine one.  He's been a committed Java fanatic from the early days, understands the platform very well, and knows developers like kinsmen.  Doug listened to my delirium salted ramblings for the better part of an hour before I finally drifted off to sleep.  He made due on the small couch in that Bangalore room, without even the air conditioner running, which must have been very uncomfortable for him.  Around 7 am, I awoke in a heavy sweat.  The fever had finally broken.  I would live.  I felt blessed.

Doug left soon thereafter.  He seemed reluctant to go, but I assured him I'd be fine.  And he called later in the day and had another evangelist call as well, just to be sure.  But I was fine after that.  Oh, I was very tired -- I slept the entire day.  And I felt very light headed and weak.  But once the fever broke, sanity returned and I knew I'd live to leave India.  And so I have.

I write this now from Singapore.  We landed here around 6 am, Singapore time.  We left Bangalore at 8 pm, laid over in Madras for 3 hours and took the red eye to Singapore.  It's Sunday.  Tomorrow is a free day for the most part, and then Tuesday we preach again.  I think we're expecting about 400 at the event here on Tuesday -- maybe a few more.

Having stayed awake all night once again, I find I need to sleep now.  I've grown used to sleeping during the day, laying awake at night, eating at odd hours or not eating at all.  I used to joke around with my cohorts when we travel asking, "Which would you rather have, constipation or diarrhea?"  I think I know the answer to that one now for myself, at least, if the diarrhea was a conspirator in my near death experience, which I suspect it was. After Bangalore, there is no question in my mind, constipation is the lesser of the two evils, at least in the short term.  :)

So now Singapore.  I intend to rest and continue my recovery.  I intend to speak here on Tuesday, and in the mean time glean what impressions I can from this mecca of capitalism and pristine island utopia.  And I intend to reflect upon the juxtaposition of Bangalore and Singapore in my own psyche and share those thoughts on these pages, as I suspect there is something to be learned here, as the contrast of these two rhyming locales is stark indeed.