Much ado about nothing!

A lot is being talked about in the media about auction of Gandhi's belongings!

I respect Gandhi as father of Nation and as an individual. I respect him because he has led India by example, professed a way of living, and unified India.

But it is ridiculous to deify him. By deifying, we are defying the very message that he sought to convey; message that it is possible to have ideals which for a good cause and live by those ideals, and that it is the right way to live. It does not require a superhuman to be that. Unfortunately, we seem to be comfortable making him a superhuman idol to be worship on suitable occasions.

He has expressed himself in a talisman to be used occasions when one doubts as to what is the right choice; it centered around helping the poor.

As things stand, we have slums even now, and we have poor in India who hardly get a proper meal every day. I fail to understand the hue and cry behind his personal belonging conveniently forgetting the spiritual message. What difference this auction would make to that poor in the country?

I understand that legally his belongings are due to Navajivan Trust. But what purpose are we trying to achieve by bringing his possessions to India while India seems to have long forgotten him, except during special occassions

Hats-off

I am always fascinated by the success of human spirit and effort!

Hats-off to A R Rahman and Rasool Pookutty for their winning Oscar awards.

I salute Hollywood for their open mind, true to the American spirit that has always stood for, and accepted, what is good from world over. I respect that American spirit, and I believe that to be instrumental to the success that America has seen in the past.

Going forward, I hope that openness prevails in the long run, despite the temporary gloom set by the economic recession. I believe there is a lot that a country and civilisation that gave the world the word that precedes silence and is followed by more silence would contribute towards world at large

Learning to live, the hard way

I thought there would be respite to hard life but the life is telling me otherwise ... It seems for now that the turmoil on my personal front is far from over.

I have tried to live my life by certain ideals. My ideals being love, compassion, caring and sharing.

I believe in those ideals because I believe man is a social being and because I believe that social fabric is weaved together with love, compassion, caring and sharing

I have shared knowledge and experience liberally all along, as that has been my primary asset. My other assets being reputation and trust that have come my way, all along... I lived so, because I was taught to live so, because I believed that is the right thing to do

Now, mid-life, I am standing at crossroads questioning the fundamentals. I question the fundamentals because life is giving me hard lessons. Was I wrong? Was I taught wrong?

It is said, what you give, comes back. I have not given because I wanted something in return. But, there seems to be strings attached to everything that is coming my way

I am at crossroads because I am forced to suspect whether what I believed as right, is truly right, whether what I believed as mine, is truly mine.

Probably, I am failing to see the design of god telling me that nothing here belongs to me. Even I myself do not belong here; nor it belongs to me

May be, it is a drama being played out, rather an emotional one. Probably, god is preparing me for a worse tomorrow. I do not know.

What I know is that it hurts.. I cannot hold back my tears

Question before me is not what and how; it is rather what for?

I need to, because I am alive? because I believe in it? because I am passionate about it?

I think so. It does not matter whether I am right or wrong. It does not matter whether I win or loose.

I stand for common good. I do for common good. I do because I believe in it.

When I stand before the mirror, look at myself in the eyes, I do not want deceit, self-interest, hatred or grudge.

I may laugh or I may cry; does not matter. I shall do both for the sake of love, compassion, caring and sharing. I shall continue to stand for a fellow being, for human spirit and progressive human society. Therefore, I stand where I am, the way I am. I cannot change, because I am what I am.

Coatings of paint may change, brightened by the sunshine or weathered by the harsh winds. But I shall stay where I am, the way I am, so long as I am around here

Human side of social development!

About a year back, I was traveling by train from Chennai to Cochin.

There was a group of youngsters around me, apparently working for some IT company. A team of young passengers around me, I overheard an interesting discussion among them.

"I gave him 10 bucks! Man, he has given back 7 bucks; a pack of biscuit for just 3 bucks!!". Converted into Dollar and Euro, 3 bucks is still low but it is still valuable in a country where poverty is still a reality!

I was amused! Are they not living in the same India that I am living in? Yes, indeed, we have tremendous progress over last two decades!

Our youngsters in middle class have money much more than they parents could ever dream of, and they and their lifestyle created envy, awe and respect among peers to the extent of creating an exodus from every engineering, science, and art streams!!

In our young days, taking loan was considered to be shameful. But for young generation, having multiple credit cards has become a fad. Now the same generation is reeling under an economic crisis emanating out of the same social lifestyle.

It seems what apparently seem to change does not truly change, after all!

Happy New Year!

From what we have seen so far, I would expect global recession to continue. I believe in relevance of software engineering in software development business. Therefore, I expect software engineering to propose a solution for software development houses. I hope that it is time now to move from ritualistic compliance of software engineering processes to its use because of business value.

Pause for a moment and reflect on our daily work. How much of that is new? How much of that is repetitive? If it is repetitive, why are we doing it? How can we get the machine to do it? If you do not ask this question, someone else will. Look back and look around; it had happened in the past in other industries, and we have played a role there in helping them do that. We replaced people with machines; more productive and more consistent, barring the initial hiccups. I do not see a reason why we should be different, why business should perceive us as different.

I expect more engineering and more automation in software development. I would also expect software development to be more accountable to business than it currently is.

On technology front, I would be keeping a close watch on collaborative geographically distributed software development environment, open software development practices more accountable to business, and more effective software test automation.

I wish you all a very happy, successful and prosperous new year!

My favorite song for the year 2009 for software engineers (Title: Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger lyrics): http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=T6CUhK8AlXI

A retrospection!

Looking back, last two years have been personally very taxing. Specifically, 2007 was traumatic personally. Though some of the traumatic experience continued into 2008, it was more of recovery personally and a time for change and consolidation Professionally. And, it was a mixed bag from the world around me.

World around me:
Chandrayan and India's achievements in Beijing Olympics after a long while are on top of my mind on a positive note. Yet another unforgettable development is a Sister Alphonsa reaching sainthood. Happiness of these, however, marred to some extent by Mumbai bomb attack and global economic recession.

Personal:
My cousin Jayan Varma became world's fastest percussive bassist. On the negative, my father's health suffered serious jolt. By god's grace, timely intervention and good medical care, he has recovered to a great extent. May be unrealistic to expect at his old age but, as a son, I expected him to be ever active. Now, he along with my mother require constant attention. I am yet to figure out what best I can do for them.

2008 was also a year when I could connect back many of my old friends. Sunil, Ashok, Suresh, Romy, and Narayanan from my college days, and my friends Arun, Unnikrishnan, Madhavan, Zacharia, Varughese and Vaideeswaran from days of my first job. I could also connect to Amit and Shanmugham from CMC Ltd, Hyderabad.

This was also a year when Mr. Naresh Kumar Reddy passed away. I was shocked to hear that sad news. I was reporting to him during later part of my tenure at CMC Ltd. Time has to say how effective I was in their application. Pray to God that his soul may rest in peace.

Professional:
On professional front, in 2008, I have worked closely with Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, Trivandrum (Ministry of Defence, Government of India), and Weapons and Electronics Systems Engineering Establishment (Ministry of Defence, Government of India), Delhi helping them adopt software engineering best practices, methodologies and tools. As a departure from the past, I had started traveling outside India on business, with a visit to Qatar in October 2007. This was followed by visit to Saudi Arabia in March-April 2008 and a visit to Nigeria in June-July 2008. In the meantime, I was working for a customer in Germany remotely from India for test automation of SAP implementation. I visited Germany, by November 2008, to commence yet another project on test automation of SAP implementation.

Overall, I am happy looking back as indicated in old farewell note to Rational that I had written in 2002, having achieved what I had set out to.

My professional high in 2008 were:
1. Publishing case studies of success from India, a result of hard work in the past
2. Paper presentation at Rational Software Development Conference in Munich, Germany
3. Publishing case studies of success in test automation of SAP implementation in Germany
4. Release of Ready for IBM Rational Software plug-in Astra Model Creator and Astra Test Automat, with best practice compliance

I shall write on what I look forward to in 2009 and further in my note tomorrow

My favorite song for the year 2008 reflection (movie: Aap Ki Kasam):
[youtube=http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=5sIr0TD0GR8&rel=0]

An old farewell note!

Rational Software Corporation was a company that I longed for, worked a couple of years there and still cherish my days there.

Going through my old records, I picked up my farewell note to Rational. It reads as below:

Farewell to 'Rational'

Firm stands ‘today’, the moment of truth
Basking in the glory of the yesterday
Lo ! beckons the future, excitements set forth
It is time for me to move on, I say !

Shall stay with me, for ever and ever
Some ‘Rational’ thoughts, so fresh as ever
The joy of sharing, and caring for another
The fun of learning, and working together

It hurts to say ‘bye’, dear ‘Rational’
Oh! my friends, it pains to bid ‘farewell’
We shall meet again in the world, so small
We shall hold together, with a heart no small

Let me be gone now, for a while
To join our hands again, in a little while
For some purpose, quite worthwhile
To help our customers, with a sweet smile

I set forth to achieve certain tasks back in 2002, and on retrospection, I am glad to have

Authored a few successes that I had set my eyes on:
1. Case studies of success in India
2. Case study of success in Germany
3. A good customer base
4. Customer testimonies

And been part of a few others that I dreamt of:
1. Astra Model Creator
2. Astra Test Automat

Wake up, or perish.....

Those who had been interacting with me over last few years would remember me as a doomsayer who had forewarned of the current recession.

Writing on the wall was clear. Cosmic dance between creation and destruction goes on. Those who watched great boom with awe are now watching the doom with despair.

Can it be any different? Answer is an emphatic Yes!

For an industry, nascent like software development, it is time for stocktaking, time for a pause and making right choices. Whether nation, business houses or individuals, those who make right decision would stay on in the race; and others vanish into oblivion.... an inescapable fact of life.

It is time we realize software development is yet another industry, yet another business, yet another profession with all the responsibilities that comes along.

It is a job, a means of living, a business. It goes into creation of intangible social structure that someone is depending on, for their life, for their job. What we do affect the very social fabric we depend on.

It is time for keeping purse string tight; it is time to correct excesses but making right decisions, right investments

A quick glance into the past shows us that other industries have gone through a similar cycle. For instance, great depression of 1930s forced a correction with practices like lean production/manufacturing; brought in the balance, controlling the excesses of those times. World has come around a full cycle!

What does that mean for us now? More on that later... but as a software engineer consider, how many hours of your work is truly creative, that require 'YOU'? If yes, how does the human intensive work, where everyone needs to be creative and apply the intellect, is engineering? If not why you are not doing it? can you be replaced by a machine? a software? another person? Every business house needs to start thinking the same... every software engineer needs to start thinking the same

Remeber, if you are asking these questions, answering these questions, and acting on them, there is someone else who is doing it, and that would decide your fate!

Back again

I had tumultuous time for last couple of years, personally. It was also time for hectic work on professional front and consolidation. Refer case studies published in IBM web site:

Much of this was achieved with the teamwork, including customer, IBM in India and my own team; a team which was absolute novices transformed into thorough professionals with continuous mentoring

Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Yet another year has gone by!
A unit of time carved out of eternity for us to live in!

Now has come a moment for reflection!
Now has come a moment to pause a while, look around and move ahead!

Last year was a mixed bag;
A mixture of good and bad, day and night, but too bad.

My mother started walking on her own again!
Probably, a medical miracle!?

A mix of providence and some hard work;
A display of hard work and sheer will power, in a way that only she can.
Unrelenting support, from my father, as best as it could be by a human.

A home nurse who has gone much beyond her official obligations;
A fact that I can hardly ignore
A fact that made me realize, yet again, importance of value beyond definitions
A fact that made me realize, yet again, how “small” things are infinitely important.
A fact that made me realize, yet again, how important it is to make life simpler and better for others to live in….
Probably, that is the very purpose of an individual life itself;
Taking human race to its glory through collective contribution of individual souls.

And, first time ever in her life, as I understand, she (rather, we) celebrated her birthday (Saptadi; 70th birthday) albeit in a simple manner

I am also glad to see my sister tasting success in a her life.
She has single handedly fought what looked, at a point in time, a loosing battle.
Now, she won a battle; of course, life has to go on
Having come this far, I am sure, she would see greater heights.

Of course, not all were pleasant.
Perhaps, it is idealistic to expect

As if a kid, I expected my father to be around my mother eternally.
Hardly ever it dawned on me that he himself is in old age.
Nevertheless, the time gently reminded me that fact when he had to be hospitalized for about a week’s time
Providence, our well wishers, medical team was kind enough to act on time and give him back to us

My experience at hospital also made realize how life could be simpler if we seek to make it so …. It made me wonder why at all we make software development unduly complex … Team work, specializations, creative content, technology etc are not unique to software development …. Balancing these factors to a business goal is also not unique to software development … Many others (say, a music director and his team, a surgeon and his team, … ) would have similar story to tell; but they end up being predictable without making things unduly complex…. It looks like, it is a questions of priorities

Hope we learn
Hope we get the fundamentals right
It is better than learning the hard way in a yet another crash!

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year!

Software Engineering & Healthcare

A few days in hospital where my father was undergoing treatment.

Though this is not the first time I have been in hospital but this time, it got me thinking...

I used to attribute much of complexity of software development to creative content & team factor in it. Now, I find that healthcare is no different.

In fact, there is many parallel in definining customer needs (which goes much beyond specified), evolving technologies, new hypotheses challenging earlier ones, interplay of many skills (Specialized physician & surgeons, Nurses, Technical experts, Office staff), ....

Yet much of it is well defined eg. Much of what Nurse needs to do is well defined and action plan in exigencies are also well defined.... and strictly adhered to

It does not lead to avoidable documentation in the name of following some standards either! Documentation is kept to the right level; the key is more of delivering to customer satisfaction than meeting specification

When will software industry learn & mature? How long can we hide behind the nascent nature of the industry and rapid pace of changes.

It is not Java or .Net or application servers or platforms or SOA or MDA ... what not, that matters .. it is uncompromised quality meeting the customer expectations and needs ... not just the wants and specifications

SoA Testing - A wake up call to testers….

Service Oriented Architecture or SOA

What does it mean for testers? Or Why testers should bother?

A wake up call to testers….

To cut it short, well, it is a buzzword….

Everyone in the industry is talking about it… Sooner or later, it is going to catch you tool, like “Hey guys, don’t you know it is SoA?”.

Does it matter?

Depends on how soon is soon…. Depends on “what if I don’t know” …. Depends on whether you are getting ready for an interview for a job hop… Depends on a new project you are getting into ….

In a way of looking at things, it defines what software means to you…. Software that you use is not confined to your machine, right? When you are chatting with your friends, many small pieces of codes running in different machines collaborate to make it happen. If any of that malfunctions, you don’t get what you want…..

OK, I get it ….. I am using Rediff Bol to chat with my friends. You mean that is SoA?

Hold on …. With SoA, what we call as applications may not really be one... not in the sense, we have known them so far … Probably, we would refine it with the term a composite application? What you are using, does it fit in that category? Think …..

Do you also see a possibility that when you chat, all of you don’t necessarily require to use same piece of software from the same vendor…. (I don’t mean that you can chat with Rediff Bol to chat with a person logged in Microsoft Messenger… But in a interconnected, unrestricted by the underlying technology, you are getting to see a possibility?

Coming to think of it…. Isn’t that how life works? … Isn’t that how office functions? … Isn’t that how business is done? Don’t you find such interactions in business when you encash a demand draft, issued by State Bank of India at Delhi, at Canara Bank in Chennai? Are we not getting our insurance claim processed without really bothering about the paperwork behind the seen? …

Can that happen in technology? Don’t we have a whole of trouble even when we try to integrate even two applications eg. Seibel & SAP? IBM Websphere Business Modeler and Mercury Test Director? ….

By the way, you are able to pull out information from across the world (say, NASA or CMU etc) without really knowing the technologies behind? Also, we see money exchanging hands through electronic transactions when you are purchasing online… and you have authorized banks to pay mobile charges through ECS

Haven’t you seen how a simple development environment like Eclipse is evolving? It is evolving to be an open source platform for software engineering .. It is almost “name it and you have it” kind of ….. Eclipse is not more than a development environment which support coding & debugging… Don’t you know that the same development environment caters to Java and C++ coding? …. Don’t you know that Eclipse scales seamlessly with plug-ins for configuration management, modeling, code review, testing etc and more in the pipeline ….

It all depends on how it was developed earlier, how you look at things, and what you want to achieve….. Collaboration happens when we agree on a few basic things and then stick to it.

All that is fine… I knew these things …. I am looking forward to a great time as users.

Great!. …. Do you also see that we made a lot of assumptions about sticking to agreement etc? … Finally, somewhere, someone like you need to make sure things are intact, make sure that every one, those whom you see and don’t, stick to those agreements, make sure that quality is actually delivered in tune with agreement, make sure that quality delivered provides a business value

Testing a software running in your machine alone simpler compared testing a software running in multiple machines … It is all the more complex when these machines are away from you and unknown to you … Yet difficult when you don’t own these pieces of code… when you have no control on that…. When you do not know anything about its internals …. And when you know that right from operating system to the kind of use software is put to changes. …

And as testers are expected to know the software better .... expected to test on behalf of customer, on behalf of user .... required to advise on ….

Happy New Year!

Yet another year passed by
Dawn of yet another beginning
Time for reflections ...
Time for new hopes ...

I observe with apprehensions on 2005
1. Rita & Katrina shattering life in the cities of most powerful country in the world; and natural disaster turning into catastrophe through human mistakes
2. Earthquake shaking various parts of earth .... is it not yet time for India & Pakistan to work together for mutual and global benefits .... probably, earth quake in Kashmir has a divine message to human kind
3. Water flooding most of Indian states; as India collectively is striving for excellence, have we forgotten to take development to grassroots, making developments more a scalable

It is not technology, or modern development but rather its adoption is what makes the difference .... for good or bad!

Hope we learn....

I look forward with hope on certain developments that potentially could,together, change the contours of software development space.

1. Model Driven Architecture
2. Software Factory
3. Ajax
4. Ruby on Rails
5. Eclipse & other open source initiatives in software engineering
6. Aligning technology with business
7. Asset Based Development
8. Service Oriented Architecture

To quote Einstein, "Opening up yet another fragment of the frontier of beauty"

And, on personal front, it is time for a change
I am publishing it wide to ensure that I do keep myself in check

1. Over years, I focussed on "intellectual" excercises ignoring my health to a great extent.
This year I plan to care a little about my health; particularly in terms of routine physical excercises
2. My kids are growing up and it is time, I spent some time for their mentoring as well, as best as I can; not only from spiritual and mental perspective but also from educational front
3. These call for some discipline; I plan to reserve holidays for myself ... a big departure from my life so far wherein I used to work through many nights and holidays.

NOW, cheaply, and without taking much trouble?

I was going through the BLOG of Grady Booch "Monday, July 18, 2005 Grand Challenge" at http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp

The words "NOW, cheaply, and without taking much trouble" registered deep within me.

As managers, we try to keep things simple, or at least look simple. Reasons we can attribute to many factors, but fact remains all the processes & tools etc, even considering, are not yet "NOW, cheaply, and without taking much trouble"....

Looks like, miles to go before I can sleep?!

Some common problems in software development

1. Customers are kept at bay (at times, because customers are assumed to be ignorant or too demanding and at times, because too much of knowledge of inside realities may affect their confidence in the solution .... in either case, it is better to expose the reality to the customer under controlled environment. Customer has right to information, right to be educated and right to make informed decisions
2. Casteism (certain roles like testers, technical writers etc are considered to be of lesser value ... of course, the situation is improving at least in isolated pockets .... only a teamwork can lead to a quality product)
3. Defering a risk for a later day or delegating it to someone else; delegating does not absolve any one, least of all the organization, of any risks, damages or guilt
4. Covering up the ignorance; considering the pace, at which the industry is evloving, it is not practically possible for any one to acquire in-depth knowledge on all related areas and it boils down to "almost always seems to mean knowing who knows what and figuring out a way to bring them to bear on your client’s
issue.”. Organizational culture and environment, and in turn, customers should accept this reality and move towards what can realistically be done
..... More to add, ... may be some other time

Imperatives of successful software development

Manage
1) Risk
2) Complexity/Size
a) Conceptual integrity of solution vis-a-vis problem: Essential
b) Structural integrity of solution: Accidental
c) Work
i) Progress
ii) Activities
iii)Work products
2) Environment (Platform, Language, IDEs, Tools, and Process): Accidental
2.1) Resources (time, team, machine, software, and other Work products)
2.2) Reusable software assets (Patterns, Framework, Components, Idioms, and Automation assets)
3) Change (requirements, environment, and team ie. no, skills, attitude, ...)
4) Communication across all stakeholders (including customers & users)

Success of art and software development: a few loud questions

What makes a software success? What makes software development success?

I know both are not the same; though, may be related in some ways.

What makes a product success? What makes an artistic creation a success?

What makes music a success?
Lyrics, Tune, Visuals, Choreography/Actors, Context ....

Art is playing to an audience or playing for the self?

Answers to these questions at various levels are different...

Software factory at work!?

One of my customers, with whom I am working very closely for last couple of months is actively into many a things which are part of software factory .... seems to be great and quite interesting .... makes a lot of difference and it works!

Give me the methodology!

Quite often, I find people asking me the methodology that I advocate and what they should adopt; whether it be for requirement management, architecting, analysis & design, testing etc.

In my experience with various customers and various kinds of project suggest that there is no single answer that can apply to all such cases and yet be specific to the detail.

Many of ‘so called’ methodologies are steps evolved based on local successes, being generalized or it becomes too exhaustive like an encyclopedia. What always works is something is evolved based on these global experience to sent the specific need.

I keep getting this kind of questions and I keep asking …… what is the problem?

What? What? What? Why? Why? Why?

Back again....

Hectic pace of work kept me away from blogging for couple of months by now.

Hopefully, I am getting into relatively easy pace as the initiatives, which I was working on, has picked up the critical momentum and would require only a moderation from side.

Typically, I engage with the customers who are developing software to solve some of their problems related to software development. It often requires a combination of mentoring on tools and finetuning the software development process.

Most of my customers are not global software giant but are big in their own way. They play an important role to ensure the world runs on software smooth. They develop software for business spanning airlines, plantations, healthcare, banking etc

On top of this comes the IBM Rational assignments which are essentially training on the IBM Rational tools and methodologies. All of them happens to be of advanced nature rather than structured training offered by IBM Rational.

That makes the job challenging and enjoyable