Information Junky

So yesterday I arrived at work and found out that we don't have an Internet connection. A colleague of mine and I tried to fix the problem but after checking everything we decided that the problem was from outside our network. We just had to wait till somebody else arrived who could fix the problem. I sat at my desk and since there was nothing I could do without an Internet connection I just started killing time doing whatever I could do with a computer without Internet.

Ten minutes later I found out I was just looking through openSUSE software catalog, reading descriptions and finding about software packages I didn't know about. I stopped for a moment to think about what I was doing. It appeared that I could do nothing else besides going through some sort of information. Had I become an addict to information? It certainly appears so. I've noticed that if I'm not reading something on the Internet, I feel numb and anxious. I have tried it. I've tried getting out of my chair, trying to practice Piano, read a newspaper, call a friend or do anything besides killing time on Wikipedia, and I immediately feel I want to get back at my computer and forget about everything else.

This can be at least part of the reason why my grades have fallen lately. I don't study, so what can I expect? My advisor and my instructors are not happy with me. I seem to need to refocus.

Alcoholics and drug addicts have support groups to help them quit. I haven't heard of a support groups for informaholics. Maybe I can find something online. :) You see even now that I feel I have a problem I'm blogging about it! There's something seriously wrong with me. I need another big dose of information to calm down!

Teabags and Cigarettes: The Legend of a Cafeteria

I spent six years of my life to get my bachelor's degree at IUST (Iran University of Science and Technology, or Elm-o-San'at). If you ask me what is the most vital part of IUST life, I will answer "the cafeteria;" there is no doubt about that. Others seem to agree with me. In just a few days the IUST cafeteria page on Facebook has more than 550 fans, and counting. (This is also a testimony to the fact that the government censorship of the Internet has practically no effect. Facebook is blocked, but everyone is on Facebook.)

We're talking about the boys' cafeteria of course. In Iran there are separate cafeterias for the boys and the girls. The girls sometimes came to our cafeteria though, but I never saw the girls' cafeteria during all those years. A female classmate of mine once told me that their cafeteria more like a dungeon. The girls never seemed to find their cafeteria very important. As to the the boys', the complete opposite was true. The cafeteria had sort of a religious importance to us. We used to joke that it's a "vajeb" (Islamic mandatory) to show up at the cafeteria everyday.

The quality of the food served at the legendary cafeteria was poor, so what was so interesting about it? I have two words for you, teabags and cigarettes. Of course, cigarettes weren't sold in there, we had to buy it from outside the campus. But then, we would come to the cafeteria, get teabags and hot water in paper cups, sit with our friends (and there were always a few people we knew in there) and kill endless time talking about trivial things.

That's all I miss now from my IUST days: a cup of tea, a bag of cigarettes and a few friends to kill time with forgetting everything else in our life.

Westernized

I never paid much attention to the government's "westernization" (or rather, anti-westernization) propaganda and I don't make my choices based on what is Iranian and what is not. But my current situation is beyond that. English has become an indispensable part of my process of thinking. I write my notes half in English, half in Persian. I think intermittently in English and in Persian. I even frequently dream in English! Now that is a bit too much, but not quite unexpected. I'm suspecting that I'm actually using English more than my native Persian despite the fact that I'm living in a Persian-speaking country.

I took a moment to think about my daily routine. when I'm at home, I'm usually either reading (almost always in English), or listening to audio books or music (both in English) or watching movies (again in English) or study (not very much, and in English naturally). When I'm out, and I don't go out unless it is necessary, I use Persian for communicating with others, which I keep
to a minimum. I rarely talk and I almost never listen (preferring to listen to audio books or occasionally music).

I never thought such thing could be possible. I used to think that even when people live in societies with languages other than their native tongues, their going to continue to use their first language for thinking. Now I see, it is even possible to stay in the society you've been born into, and change your thinking language. Interesting.

I think I am now officially westernized!

Of the Confusion, and of 3D

You know what my problem is? It's having two many interests. Well, at times it can be in an advantage, but generally it means I'm divided between doing all the things I like and learning about them.

One of these many interests of mine which I had forgotten for many years is drawing. As a kid, I used to take drawing classes. Once my teacher told me, "you know what, you're quite good at drawing. Do you like drawing?" I answered, "I don't know!" He looked at me in some strange sort of way, like it's the strangest thing in the world not to know if you like something or not.

Now that I come to think about it, at that time I was feeling quite the same way that I do now. I knew I liked drawing, but I didn't know if it's the right thing to like. It's a few months that I'm thinking about this again. And now, I have more problems. I have already channeled my abilities to other fields. But since I am already confused about what I'm going to do after graduation, maybe a little more confusion is not much important.

My other fields of interest are programming and computer science (especially formal language theory, compiler theory, data storage, and graphics), and linguistics. To add to the confusion, my current field of study is computer hardware!

Back to the drawing problem, I'm beginning to feel like Saint-Exupéry in The Little Prince. Since it seems too late to pick drawing again, lately I've been trying to remedy my situation by studying about computer graphics (from a programmer's perspective) and also 3D modeling and animation. These subjects have turned out to be very fascinating. The following is one of my first attempts to model something non-trivial. It may not be great, but I'm pretty much proud of it! It's my own pair of eyeglasses modeled using Blender, a great piece of Free/Open Source software.



But, yet still, the confusion remains.

The Mighty Fortress

Do not lose your faith. A mighty fortress is our mathematics. Mathematics will rise to the challenge, as it always has.

Stanislaw Ulam

I've not been able to post anything new to my blog for a long time. My mind has been quite busy to think of anything to write. I also haven't had enough time, nor it seems I'm going to have for a while. Anyhow, I was reading this thought provoking article today, when I saw the above quote from Stanislaw Ulam which I really liked. I thought I would post it here, even if it is only as a reminder to myself.

I never thought I would admit this one day, but I really love math!

The President and Bananas

Today's lunch at university's self-service restaurant was quite good. Guess why?

It is a well known fact that there are "special" occasions in Iran on which everything becomes good; everyone tries to make people happy; all government officials think about the problems of people; public services run smoothly; and, in universities (like other state run institutes) the quality of meals becomes much better! A good example of such occasions is just before an upcoming "election" (they call it an election, not me!), but we're not near an election. So why there was even a banana with our lunch?

It's simple. We had a "guest": the "popular president of the nation", Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Now, one might wonder how he dared to enter another university after he was heavily protested against in Amirkabir University and called a dictator by the students. Did he imagine it would be any different in Elm-o-San'at? No. He is definitely aware of the hatred of students towards himself. And, as one might expect, he didn't show up in the public. Isn't it ridiculous that he visited the university without actually visiting any students? And I don't mean students wanted to see him (we'd rather to see a monkey in the zoo!) but everyone felt it would be great to demonstrate another Amirkabir.

And, by the way, this "popular" president of ours always pretends to be a mere teacher whose only earning is from teaching. It struck me if it is his job to teach students here (and yes, it is a shame, but he is a faculty member of our university), why should he be welcomed by placards? Doesn't that confirm that he actually doesn't attend any classes?

Big Brother

When I finished reading George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, I was wondering who is the real Big Brother among all those I know. My first candidate was the Supreme Leader, but I reconsidered that because even "they" don't claim he is watching us. Who is the one then? The one that watches over? The one that we should fear and yet love?

Quickly I started remembering about him. I remembered I read in "the Book" that he is watchful over all things. I even remember I heard the world is his very presence, and that we should not "commit sins" in his presence.

They say someone will come, a reformer, who will rebuild our "corrupt" world and make it a place in which everyone loves him. Don't they say how he is going to do that? Of course, they do; he will kill those who don't love him.

And now I think I know the Big Brother, but unfortunately I hate him. Maybe they should take me to the room 101; although I doubt if even that can make me love Allah.

The Paranoid

It may be a small thing, but these small things sometimes really hurt; especially, when there are a lot of them. What is it? Simple. take a look at the picture: Google "Code Search" is not available in your country. And so is Google Toolbar, and Sun Java Runtime, and Paypal (which ironically is also blocked by the government), and a lot more of these small things.

And why? Because of the paranoid one who is always thinking and speaking about "the enemy." or because of the other guy who feels responsible to "wipe" another nation "off the map," but does not feel that responsible to tackle the problems of his own nation (if he has any feelings towards his homeland; or probably he follows his leader on this, that when returned to Iran after years and was asked "How do you feel, Ayatollah Khomeini, now that you have returned to your homeland after all these years?" and he simply answered, "Nothing.")

Because of them? This one, then, really hurts.

A Journey to the White Spaces

"He looked at maps, and wondered what lay beyond their edges: maps made in the Shire showed mostly white spaces beyond its borders." --The Fellowship of the Ring

There are things about the old world one may miss. For me, it is living in a mysterious world; one in which you can imagine anything you like about what lies a few miles away. A world in which "the road" is the start of a journey you do not know about its end.

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even worse places?"

I get disappointed when I think about what we call "a road" today. You can drive as much as you like and you will keep seeing signs saying, "Qom 40", "Esfahan 175", "Ahvaz 680", and things like that.

When I think more about it, our maps do show white spaces beyond our planet; Well, yes, they are usually painted black and there are small white points on them our physicists can tell you exactly what atoms they are made of. What the physicists cannot tell you, is how it looks like to live there (and even their information about what they are made of [or even if they exist or not] is a little bit out-dated; they cannot tell you anything about our neighbor galaxy, Andromeda, newer than 2.5 million years ago). So we do have white spaces; quite exciting. The disappointing fact is that we cannot take a backpack and start a trip to see the mountains ("Mountains Gandalf, mountains!"). I believe a time will come, sooner or later, that people will be able to do that. I don't have much hope that I will be alive by that time. Seems we are in the wrong time.

Maybe years later, a grand grandchild of me will take a backpack and start a journey towards the white spaces to see the lonely mountain. Maybe, on the road, he/she will be singing:

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say

Islamic Bureau for Censorship

A few days ago I had a post about the rumors I had heard about registering websites/blogs, recently required by the government of Iran. At that time, I could not find the website it was said people have to register their websites in; I finally found it: samandehi.ir ("samandehi" literally means "organizing"). As the website says, all websites and blogs with a top-level domain name has to be registered with the Bureau for Organizing Iranian Websites within two months beginning from January 28, 2007. As I have read, the term for having a top-level domain name has been silently added after the huge amount of protest from bloggers (and it is not reflected in the bylaw, yet!).

I spent some time reading all the information in the website and I found the entire plan enormously ridiculous. The bylaw, as presented in the website, defines an "internet sites" as "all centers in the Internet network that provide www and FTP services" (I'm literally quoting the phrase used). I cannot translate all the bylaw here for your amusement (it's quite long) but, accept it from me, everything about the website and the plan (including the very text of the bylaw) looks completely amateur and apparently shows the knowledge of the "governors" about the Internet itself.

An amusing point among all I read in the website, was that nowhere I could find anything about who this law applies to. Does it apply to Iranians? To those who live in Iran? To those who provide Persian language content? Or something else? No answer. And together with the fact that the government has announced that access to non-registered websites will be blocked, it can be used to block *any* website easier than before. Also notice that the bureau has complete power over the matter and does not even need the decision of a court.

Another issue that has been a matter of much discussion by Iranian bloggers is the location of the web servers that are going to store the important information the information the bureau collects (the information which even includes which database servers the website uses, if any). The location of the web servers can be easily tracked by looking up the location of the IP addresses obtained by a "whois". The web servers are located in China and the U.S.! Keyhan's justification of this is funny, too. (Keyhan is a hard-line Iranian daily). Keyhan believes this is a mistake made by "tracking the incorrect IP (Internet Provider)". Apparently, the Keyhan reporter does not have the slightest idea what IP and IP addresses are.

It seems the Islamic regime is strengthening its place as the greatest enemy of the Internet (only after China), but probably we'd better call it the most frightened government from the Internet (and the power of its citizens), and I believe "The Islamic Bureau for Censorship" makes a much better name for the bureau than "The Bureau for Organizing Iranian Websites", and it follows the tradition of calling the state-run agencies, "Islamic" ones. What do you think?

Why We Need Arc

A lot of Lisp enthusiasts, including me, have been eagerly expecting the arrival of Arc ever since Paul Graham announced working on it. I think not only having Arc is exciting, the Lisp community really *needs* Arc.

Back in the old good days Common Lisp had one of the largest standard libraries ever. This has changed dramatically in recent years and now CL's standard library can correctly be called "tiny". This becomes a real problem along with the fact that CL does not have a de facto standard, only an official one which is not sufficient, nor does it have a de facto implementation and although the lack of a single prominent implementation can be beneficial (Darwin's evolution theory) along with the fact that CL's standard library is really tiny in comparison to many new languages today (Python, for example) and there is no way for adding new packages to the standard library, a fundamental problem arises, and this problem for the Lisp community. Many good libraries have been written for Common Lisp, but they are not anyhow part of the standard and neither they have become a de facto standard. I believe, Arc can change that. Why? Because there is one man behind it, just like Python. In case of Python, the language and the libraries are largely being developed and enhanced by the community, but the presence of Guido assures that everything runs smoothly and when there cannot be a consensus (like for the new "if" expression in Python 2.5, or the "print >>" statement) there is one man who decides what to do. This sometimes may sound undemocratic, but at least it will help things run.The position of Paul Graham in today's Lisp community is probably even stronger than Guido in Python community. Many new Lispers will tell you that they turned to Lisp only because of reading Graham's essays and in fact he has become kind of mentor to them.

Whenever we have Arc, we will have a real evolving de facto standard: new libraries can be added to the standard library and language enhancement proposals can be made. We can enjoy an evolving language, as much as Python, Perl and Ruby programmer can.

Some people have been criticizing Paul Graham for announcing a vaporware and that Arc is only a delusion. I disagree with this belief. Why there isn't a running implementation of Arc after so much time, and despite the fact that Paul Graham is always encouraging software startups to release a working edition as early as possible? Shouldn't he follow his own advice? I don't think so. When he encourages startups to release early, he is teaching them how to start a company and finally make money out of it (and releasing early, as he argues, is essential for today's startups). But he himself is not going to start an Arc company; Arc is his hobby, and besides that, releasing even a very early alpha or beta, will start his career of leadership in a community and it will certainly take a lot of time from him; a time he may not be able to spare now. Also, releasing a working edition will probably take his hobby from him. Paul Graham, as far as I can understand from his website, is a language enthusiast and he seems to really enjoy constantly changing the language to see only what happens. He won't be able to do that as much after release. This reminds of J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien was a language enthusiast (of course, human languages I mean) and he loved to change the languages he invented, the process which started from early Qneya and resulted the modern Quenya beside others (and not to mention other languages he invented). After release of Lord of the Rings he was not able to play with his favorite hobby as he liked anymore. So I don't think it is correct to blame Paul on not releasing Arc. We're asking him to leave his hobby, and then spare a lot of his time for the coming community. Although he himself has decided to do that, it would be very ungrateful of us demand anything else. We should only hope!

After Three Days

"Thus spake the master programmer: after three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." The Tao of Programming, Geoffrey James

This is what's happening to me --I'm losing my life's meaning. The exams have been one of the causes. One other reason was I didn't know what to write. If you're a devout programmer, you know what I mean. It's the worse feeling ever. I'm a little picky about what to write and it becomes a problem sometimes (like now). Anyhow, I got a few ideas, and I will start one in the next few days --hopefully, before I commit suicide for not having a reason for life!

No More Math Tonight

I have about 11 more hours to study for tomorrow morning's exam, and you know many students do use such time to read more, but I don't. Although I'm not yet quite sure if I know enough to pass the exam, I simply can't study more. Whatever I do, my brain does not like over-studying!

Tomorrow, I'm going to be a free man again!

Would You Replace the Washing Machine?

"If your car or washing machine is still running well, do you replace it? Would you replace your car if a new one required you to learn a new way to turn it off?"

I came up with this question today in an article discussing if upgrading to Windows Vista is really essential for most users or not, considering that they are doing their everyday tasks before that normally, and also that according to a study by Softchoice, 94 percent of PCs do not meet the system requirements for Vista Premium. You may know that I'm not using Windows anymore, but the question and the article made me think seriously, and I finally concluded that, "yes, I would!"

Now you're probably wondering why I would do that. It's simple. Consider the case of the washing machine. What if you don't upgrade the washing machine and keep receiving emails containing attached dishes that can only be washed with the washing machine that can be turned off some new way (probably the new way consists of a nine item menu and even an "Are you sure?" dialog after that)? And in the case of the car, probably most new parts have a "new-turn-off-way certified" or a "modern-turn-off tuned" seal on them? Wouldn't the average user just upgrade to the new washing machine (or car)? Seems reasonable, ...or probably the whole thing is seriously wrong.

Don't bother with Vista, and also put an end to Word attachments.

The Reminder

One of the main themes I wanted for my blog was stories and mythology. I don't know if the readers of my blog liked them or not, but I personally enjoyed writing those posts about Arash and Kaveh. Unfortunately, I have had little time for working on stories lately. I like to read more about each story I want to retell, compare sources and compile the best narrative I can. I have a few candidates, one of which is retelling the story of Siavash, one of my favorites in Shahnameh, but I need some time to think about the retelling and style, and to write several drafts and to throw them away. I'm not a professional, but as I said I like to do the best I can.

This is more of a reminder for myself, than an announcement, of course. I wish the exams started and finished sooner. When something unpleasant is going to happen, well, the sooner, the better!

The Wise Move

It's more than a month I haven't booted into Windows. Today, I had to go to Windows to check something work in Windows, because I want to give it to a university instructor and it has to work correctly in Windows. Guess what happened? Just when Windows XP started up, after a long time of hard disk activity, it proposed me to restart the computer because it had detected a new hardware! And I assure you there is no new hardware. Of course, I clicked 'No'.

I had a short work of a few minutes, and it was enough to show me how slow Windows is. It was like a headache. I'm wondering how I used to do my everyday work in Windows. I'm now more confident about my move, and I'm so happy it finished!

Cultural Engineering

I was going to my engineering mathematics class in the Islamic Knowledge department (some math classes are taking place there due to a space shortage in the math department) where I saw a poster with the title "The Cultural Engineering National Conference". This is a new plan from an ever fearful government that's doing its best to survive. So what the heck is cultural engineering? I thought it should be another invention of him ("him," in the same sense it was used in The Lord of the Rings) just like the software movement project he announced some time ago and had nothing to do with real software (yes, he's so supreme that he can order the words change their meanings as he likes!). So I started to do a search on Google, and guess what? I was right! I got some results, though. Let's check one out. This is what Cultural Engineering L.L.C. says, and it's interesting enough to quote from their definition page:

"Cultural engineering is a conceptual approach to cultural development planning and management that takes into account the changing concepts of culture and the design of practical strategies for dealing with issues and problems raised by culture and development in diverse contexts.... In other words, cultural engineering is about systems, processes, alternatives and the formulation of creative solutions to challenges in the development of cultural institutions and the promotion of people’s participation in cultural life."

It seems, as I already suspected, cultural engineering is not a well-established world-wide concept and the results I got were mostly part inventions used by some author to express an idea, like the one I quoted, which is mostly a corporate definition and interestingly involves "the promotion of people's participation in cultural life," as the last sentence puts it, and not someone else trying to smooth the cultural status of a nation to match his own interest. Yes, they want to engineer a nation in quite the same way someone tries to change the internals of a machine to have it work better for their needs. The only difference is that in the former a seventy-million nation should suffer and not a poor machine, but who cares?

Now that I'm writing about a himself-invented phrase, I think it's a good place to write about the other one I mentioned earlier: a software movement! I'd better quote a definition first. This is my translation of part of an essay from aviny.com. The essay titled "The Principals of the Software Movement" is written by Mohammad Ghalibaf, the current Tehran mayor.

Every civilization is built out of hardware and software. Hardware is the social structure and its products.... software is the conceptual system that backs the hardware, and like the hardware has many types: the principal concepts like philosophy of logic and logic [itself], the technical concepts like different mathematical, physical and social sciences, and also the social and general concepts with their own technical definitions, all of which are among the software.

I hate it when non-technicals use a phrase they don't understand at all for something else. Anyhow, software movement, along with cultural engineering, is part of a larger project they are working on: to control all the aspects of the Iranian society and then use it as a tool for their aims. The aims I'm talking about is, of course, far from a local Islamic system for Iran. They are (or want to be) "global gladiators", as Alvin Toffler calls them in his book, Powershift. Remember that their religion is all about world conquer.

Freedom Is Good

No, this is not a political post. It has more with the hacker spirit than with them (Don't misunderstand the real hacker for the stereotypical Hollywood types you see in movies or read about in newspapers; They're crackers. See Eric Raymond's famous How to Become a Hacker for more information on "Freedom Is Good" and the hacker attitude itself). I've just left the company I was working for in the last two months and I'm enjoying my freedom.

Now I understand the stress of working for someone else: someone stupid chooses a stupid project for you to work on, and you should maintain a long long list of stupid standards and then present your program for even a more stupid person (the exact "pointy-haired boss" type Paul Graham describes; See Revenge of the Nerds for more info). All of these happens in a stupid environment where they call it a company. And I was the smartest of the programmers (they said) and was assigned those projects that needed a smarter guy!

Now I'm again on my own. I choose my own project (how about an online game, or something fun like that), I can choose my own programming language (My favorites are Lisp, and Python after it), I maintain my own coding standards (isn't it just stupid to call the loop index "intCounter"?) and the working place is "home, sweet home", with the favorite Ubuntu box always at hand.

One can understand heaven only after experiencing the hell!

Complex Integration, Residues, and Our Education System

I knew that Dr. Jazbi as a mathematician does not say anything definitely unless it is proven to her, so why was she strongly asking us to prove it, in any case distinctively, that the last statement evaluates to zero, although she definitely told us that it will always evaluate to zero? Finally someone asked her, and she simply answered, "Well, if all you have to do is to find a few residues, then what are you here for? Everyone can do that."

We should prove that so that the problems remains sufficiently difficult for the examinations. Many parts of the education system of Iran acts this way. They are not preparing students to solve real problems. In real world we have access to all textbooks, tables, computers and calculators, and we know that statement always evaluates to zero. So Isn't something seriously wrong about this system of education? But real world problems tend to be much more complicated that the ones they want us to solve in the exams. If they want their exams to be sufficiently difficult, then they can use some real world problems and let us free to use anything we want. So why don't they do that? I guess that is because it takes them a lot of effort, for this is not a simple change in the exams but a big change in the education system itself.

They might argue that in some courses, like engineering mathematics, there is no real world problem unless, of course, they go into details of something like a real mechanical system. That is correct, and that's why I say we need a fundamental change in the educations system. I mean I really doubt about the necessity of a course like engineering mathematics (in its current form). As a computer engineering student, I don't think I will ever need to solve heat equations. In fact, if I were to study only software (i.e. if I could), I would hardly needed a bit of non-discrete math like differential equations (and I'm not going to talk about all the non-sense we are mandated to study in the Islamic Knowledge department).

A university is a place that attracts a lot of smart people and can let them do great things. That is good, and this is why I still like it, and if we compare it to all other state run institutions it's definitely a lot better than them (bad is better than worse, or worse is better than the worst!) but it could be a whole lot more productive, and more fun.

The Way of Unix

I'm enjoying my life! Switching to Linux was an excellent idea. I'm just regretting why I didn't do this earlier (I had been thinking about this for more than a year!). In many books I had read how things in Unix are, and it was all like a mystery. Now I am really experiencing the way of Unix in Linux. How is it different, you ask? My answer: Although there are a *lot* of differences, the most important thing, in my opinion, is you must learn before you can do anything. Learning is essential. For example, in my first days in Linux I made a complete mess with my package manager and a large number of packages. Many programs simply stopped working. It took me a lot of time to figure out what's wrong and a few days to fix everything. But now I know much more than before. What would I do in Windows to fix such thing? A simple reinstall! Yes, simple it is, but does it teach you not to make the same mistake again? Apparently not. And that's why many people keep reinstalling Windows every few weeks (or even more, sometimes much more).

Now that I'm talking about Linux making people learn, I remember part of Eric Raymond's How to Become a Hacker in which he says about Unix-like systems: "...you'll have fun, and you'll soak up more knowledge than you realize you're learning until you look back on it as a master hacker." Now I don't mean that I've become a master hacker, but I'm beginning to realize.

Another thing I'm really enjoying in Linux is that automating tasks is a whole lot easier. There are a lot of powerful scripting languages and the whole system is much more scriptable. I learned that in Linux the solution of many problems I might have to install a program for in Windows, is a small script. A script is a program, and what else is more enjoyable for a programmer than writing programs for everyday tasks?

Unix, and today's Unix-like systems like Linux, are a dream world for a programmer. If you enjoy programming and you're still stuck to Windows, you're probably missing the most enjoyable environment a programmer can ever have.