Indian engineering colleges are terrible at approaching technology

You might remember the good old Turbo C++ IDE from your common engineering classes. While the nostalgia inducing GUI can look like a smurf threw up pixels on your screen, there are actual reasons why you'll never see a qualified programmer use something that almost literally resembles a makeshift BSoD.

In fact, this isn't a problem that only I've decided to speak up about. Engineering students have long since taken to sites like StackOverflow to express their concerns about this as well :

Here's an example.

And here's another.

Now, I don't deny that there might be some hidden superpowers that might make Turbo C an excellent IDE/Compiler, but taking what's common from the answers in the links above, there is a genuine reason to stay away from it: Turbo C is just way too old.

Here's the thing: The way technology works, something obsolete is almost as good as irrelevant.

When it comes to technology, it's in its nature to keep itself changing by constantly updating to newer and more efficient practices. No matter how popular a product in this field is right now, if it can't keep up with these changes, it will soon be forgotten.

There are very few exceptions to this, and I'm sure half of you are already shaking your heads :
But Arvind, for learning programming basics, Turbo C works just fine. Any C++ program that works in a newer compiler will also work on Turbo C, so what's the big deal?
Actually no, it won't. Remember when I said that technology keeps updating itself to follow newer standards? Well some of these standards are not backwards compatible. So if you tried to compile a newer C++ program across an old C compiler, it isn't necessarily going to work.

My issue with the way colleges here teach technology isn't just restricted to the fact they use software older than I am (which is a pretty big problem by itself), but I'm also unhappy with the entire mindset in which these things are taught.
Applying logic and critical thinking isn't generally encouraged. Programs are given to students, and they're expected to memorize the flow for the time being. The components and elements will be explained, but their logical use cases and why they need to be used there are left in the dark.

The entire idea of "finding a solution to the problem" is a foreign concept to students. There is no inspiration for creativity. Why would someone put in the effort to come up with a better or different solution when they know that no one's going to give a crap? It's no surprise that senior CSE or ISE students find their syllabus so hard. They're randomly expected to do new and advanced things after their entire thought process behind coding was built on programming habits they developed by memorizing programs that aren't even relevant to today's technology.
An education system like this helps only to churn out manpower to companies which require constant grunt work and pay very little. They'll have no problem letting you go when that work is done and you've displayed no creative prowess to help the company innovate.

No matter how big of a disadvantage you realize this can all be, there have been people who made it out of this system without lasting damage. Quoting a comment on one of the StackOverflow answers above,
"If you want to gain some real-world experience, take on the challenge of getting the University to update its compiler technology. You will be helping all of the students gain a more relevant education, improving the value of the university program, and learning tons about how to persuade people when you have no direct influence, a key part of any professional's life."
In my college, I intend to at least try to bring about some positive change by communicating with the authorities, and on the off chance that it fails, I could always start a club where we teach ourselves all that which today's graduates sorely need.

Antiviruses and why they do more harm than good

It's been around four years since I've been using my current laptop and I have not had to deal with a single virus during that entire period (apart from the ones I made myself). To make that point hit you harder, I do not use an antivirus, and yes I run Windows.

I use the internet a lot, and while you might think I'm simply lucky, the truth is that there are loads of people who already do this. The idea is that there really are some foolproof methods you can apply to make viruses perpetually gone. We'll discuss those methods after I explain why antiviruses by themselves are not exactly safe.

Now you might be thinking : What's the big deal? So it's possible to avoid viruses, but I have an antivirus to keep myself on the safer side. It's not like it's doing me any harm.

Well, antiviruses can actually do a lot more harm than you think.

Antiviruses can often act bizarre and erratic. If you're trying to get some work done, this can be a bigger pain in the ass than having to deal with printers that were sent from hell.
The thing is, antiviruses try their best to keep your computer safe. Therefore by nature, it is suspicious of everything in your computer. The antivirus however doesn't know your computer as well as you do, which means that it will often target completely innocent files which can be crucial to keep your system running. As a result, the aftermath is often disastrous, or if you're lucky, just hilarious.
Which is why the really ironic part is this : The better the antivirus is, the harder it gets for the user to get his work done.

For example, this person's antivirus began to delete his system32 files.

Norton too is capable of funny fuckups.

If you've had an antivirus for long enough, you know exactly what I'm talking about. How many times did you download a harmless file for your school/work project only to have your antivirus flag it as malware and remove it from your system?
Not only does your antivirus take up memory and processing power that you could otherwise use for running your apps better, but sometimes antiviruses come with viruses bundled with them.
Pretty smart, huh? The people who make these viruses sure know what they're doing.

Fine, fine. So what do I have to do if I want to live without an antivirus?
I admit, when I first started out on the internet, I used an antivirus. Eventually, when I had to face all these problems, I realized I could do without them. I discovered the best way to avoid viruses is to use common sense.

I'm sorry if that's ambiguous (we will go a little into depth, don't worry), but rational thinking is all you need here to get you on your virus free path. Don't run files downloaded from untrustworthy sources, don't install shady plugins on your browser, don't visit sites that prompt you to install weird apps, etc.

You should pretty much already know these by now. You ignore ads that say you get a free iPad because you're the 10,000th visitor. You check reviews before downloading questionable software. You stay away from torrents that have surprisingly less seeders. All these are general ideas on how you simply have to use your intuition and be safe.

You can't get viruses from an image, or a song, so executables are the only offline resource that you need to be wary about when you download them. So if for some reason, you absolutely want to run such a file, and common sense isn't getting you far, then run the file through an online virus checker such as virustotal.com and if the site says the file is clean, then you're good. That's what I do when I download a crack or patch for a game, and I'm not sure it's safe.
You could even start a Virtual Machine and run the file in it for extreme cases. That will isolate the infection, if any, to only the Virtual Machine.

To be honest, that's all there is to it. Majority of the people I know who've complained about viruses simply missed out on the above in some instance or another. They might have visited a site with a slightly mistyped URL and downloaded something from there, or they installed a certain media player because a random online streaming site asked them to do so. Those were the most popular cases that I encountered.

Whether or not you use your antivirus beyond this point is upto you, but when people ask me what antivirus I recommend, I make sure they know that I don't, and I hope you will one day be a part of that crew, if you aren't already.