Msit Voice March, 2009

March 09 Volume : 1, Edition : 4

General population….novice—journey man——master …journey is definitely long, but how many of us aim to get there? An eminent personality in the software engineering domain, Dr.Lynn Robert Carter has a fusion of industry and academic experience with him. He is known to MSITians as a professor who set the right tone for the software engineering specialization and as a principal mentor guiding them. The recent talk on ‘Delivering software engineering skill’ at MSIT, has unleashed a new set of learning interventions that he emphasized on. He started off exploring the various driving factors to arrive at a superior product in any walk of business. According to him, competition, complexity explosion, quality and performance serve as propellers to excel in producing an outstanding work in a business landscape. Why then there is only 28% success in software projects, where 23% are cancelled delivering nothing, 49% are late, over budget and missing features…he put forth an intriguing question. Drawing an analogy with ‘Blue Angels’, an aviation company, Dr.Carter accentuated the relevance and significance of personal mastery and team mastery which ensure pertinent communication skills, making them trustworthy, committed and developing a zeal to improve themselves continuously. The inclusion of such courses in curriculum is more relevant than ever in today’s world and MSIT has the right blend of both the skills, i.e., technical and soft skills he opined.

A competency graph depicted by him, showed a few phases that a learner would go through before he gets to his mastery level: General population phase, where a learner is totally unpredictable, a novice stage, where he understands that he is a beginner and needs to travel a long way to reach the expertise targeted, next comes the journey man, who has the ability to make and honor commitments and finally master phase. Masters, Dr.Carter said, are not just knowledgeable but should be given a title by others and should not be called a master until a master piece is produced. Masters he emphasized should produce work so compelling that novices are willing to apprentice, transforming majority of such apprentices into journey men, who then would proceed to become masters in their own right, thus ensuring knowledge and skills they have learnt live on in others. Describing three types of learning styles according to Bloom’s taxonomy, he spoke out that at a freshman level, a professional requires all the three skills: Cognitive(knowledge), affective(attitude) and psychomotor(manual skills) but most courses tend to focus only on cognitive skills hence not contributing to development of an all rounded professional. When a course is designed to offer a real world demonstration of a problem, it should be supported by required knowledge and skills to offer a guided practice and experience to the learner, he stressed.

Dr.Carter emphasized that a learner should aim at phased learning, where he is initially introduced to the concept, then enabled to develop the concept by showing several similar but different aspects that complicate things as well as potential solutions with stories and finally fully explore the concept once all related aspects have been developed, compare and contrast the costs and benefits, again with stories. He verily said that teaching has to follow an iterative approach thus helping the learners align their wheels on the asphalt and not on the verges, strengthening their basic lessons. Teaching as the work is done and taking demonstrations at every level of learning would help the learner to arrive at several viable solutions. He consummated, leaving a note on the measure of success of a graduate. According to him, it does not matter what a student knows at the time of the final or when they graduate, all that matters is what they are able to do when called upon to perform on the job, where most graduates struggle, because they are not given time to research, think, plan, design, implement, and then transition…….they are only given time to react! That sums up his talk in a nut shell, leaving us to deduce and use the concepts afore mentioned in our walks of life. Padmaja. N Principal Mentor, Soft Skills.

Jai Ho! Slumdog Millionaire – The movie is a clear sign of the arrival of Indian films on the world stage. By winning eight Oscars, it has made Indians feel proud. It has also made it possible for A.R.Rahman to be included in the list of top musicians in the world. He has been my all-time favorite. He had made such a great contribution to the world of music with his wonderful compositions. Slumdog proved to be a breakthrough for him. Though this is not the first time that we won at the Oscars, (if you remember, the last time that we won an Oscar was for “Gandhi”) Slumdog created a very different feeling. It somehow brings the feeling of Indian victory. The movie is, however, not an Indian film. The director, producer and screenplay writer are all British. The movie is backed by two American studios. However, the movie is based on a novel written by an Indian diplomat, Vikas Swarup. The movie had elements that try to hold our senses every now and then make an impact on us. But putting the Oscar and non-Oscar tags aside, I somehow feel that the movie was over-rated. Yes, definitely, Danny Boyle was very much successful in steering the movie in so many directions- poverty, religion, child abuse, underworld, love, romance, triumphs of victory. The cinematography, music was all fine. But I feel Lagaan is equally good or even better. But the only reason that it did not win an Oscar is that it was made by Indians while Slumdog had the advantage of being made by a British director. Whatever it is, now that we have won such a prestigious award, in order to take it further, our film makers should start making movies with less songs and more sense. Jai Ho!! PRIYANKA MSIT IIIT I Year

Ballad in Ecstasy “Thou hast awakened the dormancy That constantly keeps track Of my existence and critically governs my day do. Blaming thee for an undesired discrepancy, Stirring the lethargic passions And arousing the discarded sizzle. Thou hast a crazy clung to my bosom; Igniting it to work wonders in splendid. Invisible are thou indeed in every deed; Insipid are my treasures before thy pleasures, Unfathomable are their measures That serves an antidote to my day’s pressures. Sunken in the rays of thine And indifferent to holy shrine, But miles to reach thou divine. My inner self in pain pokes But peeps into thy secrets. However, still my heart says no regrets But exclusively solicits high spirits.” MSIT Alumni.

Importance of Software Engineering Some people think that “Software Engineering” is a buzzword and no formal Software Engineering knowledge is required to develop software. They try to justify this by referring to the current state of software development. But as Steve McConnell says, proper question is not “What is software development currently?” but rather “What should professional software development be?” The answer to that question is clear: professional software development should be engineering. Is it? No. But should it be? Unquestionably, yes. At present, overall quality of software is very bad. Partly may be due to fact that many people think that Software Engineering and Computer programming are the same and no formal education is needed to develop professional quality software. It may take several years for a computer science graduate to accumulate enough knowledge to build professional quality production software. Without any relavant formal education software developers may spend entire career witout knowing how to develop production quality software. Lot of experienced developers have no clue how to develop large scale systems, how to handle forward and backward compatibility, managing hude code lines, increasing dependability of software, software estimation, process or economics of software to name a few. What is the root cause of this problem? The problem is primarily due to the pace at which software job market has grown and common misconception that any one can write software. Any one can write software. The question to ask is “Can any one write high quality production quality software”. The answer is No. Infact most of the organizations are suffering due to the lack of quality in software, schedule and budget over runs. So, what is Software Engineering really? Let’s start with the definition of the term engineering. Engineering is the application of scientific and mathematical principles toward practical ends. That is what most programmers try to do. We apply scientifically developed and mathematically defined algorithms, functional design methods, quality-assurance methods, and other practices to develop software products and services. As David Parnas points out, in other technical fields the engineering professions were invented and given legal standing so that customers could know who was qualified to build technical products. Software customers deserve no less. And how long does it take for a computer science graduate to develop acceptable levels of skills to develop software? The answer is a few years. How do we create students who can who can develop product quality software on day one and how do we create software development experts who can take software development to the next level? One of the solutions is to treat software engineering as a real engineering discipline and introduce it as an engineering discipline at both under graduate and graduate levels.

Murthy D. N. MSIT Alumni.

Womens Day In its various incarnations, ranging from a communist holiday to a U.N sponsored event , Women’s day has been celebrated on the 8th of March, for over 95 Years . Women have, for over the centuries borne the burden of the world’s natural and man-made disasters. Controlled and exploited they face fresh challenges in the 21st century of Information technology and global competition. To state that there has been no change in the state of woman would be too pessimistic. There have been many significant achievements that have helped women achieve an identity and dignity. But most of the government sponsored development activities have affected only a small section of the urban middle class women. A large majority of them are still unaffected by the change and development. Right efforts from all areas are required in the development of women and their greater participation in all activities. Women need to be considered as specific target group for all development programs. Better education to women folk can speed up the process. Counseling on a large scale should be given to women to remove psychological issues, like lack of self confidence and fear of success. Progress towards their goal is assessed by measuring gender equality in areas like education, employment and political decision making. In the journey towards women power following are a few ‘She-roes’ from where one can derive inspiration from: Chanda Kocchar, Executive director, ICICI Bank: She rose from a management trainee to the post of a chief executive officer. She set an example in the corporate world of being a woman leading India’s largest private sector bank Naina lal Kidwani,Deputy CEO,HSBC :A prominent personality of the corporate world, she is the first woman to guide the functioning of a foreign bank in India. Her commendable work has been given due recognition by honoring her with the Padmashri award Shehnaz Hussain , Shehnaz herbals: She is the pioneer and leader of herbal care in India, she has taken India’s Ayurvedic tradition to every corner of the globe. She is a recipient of several national and international awards. Kiran Bedi, IPS: She began her career as a political science lecturer and became the first woman to join the IPS and went on to win the Magsaysay award. Lata Mangeshkar ,Singer: Dubbed the Nightingale of India, she has sung in over 20 languages and is the second Indian singer to have received the Bharat Ratna. All women no matter what the circumstances, ought to extend any kind of support to those who need it. No matter how small, the effort can go a long way to empower the women of tomorrow! Women don’t have to outdistance or outperform men, they simply have to start being confident about themselves. Vijaya .K, Soft Skills Mentor. Hallowed be thy seat! I am on a bench, I can’t bear the stench, I am kept warm, Away from all harm, Behind me is the Manager, Ahead is the Damager, Between the devil and Satan, I am on bench! What’s a piece of wooden or metal furniture, which mostly offers several persons seating called? Ladies & Gentleman, unless you are living in the stone age, you would know the answer to that question and it is ‘Bench’. Even if you live in the stone age, you would have sat on it, of course you wouldn’t know its hallowed name. Anyway, what an interesting journey our ‘bench’ had - from gracing the rough and hairy bottom of early man (and woman too!) to modern day bits and butts of wannabe software engineers. In the course of it’s journey, ‘bench’ has taken on a new meaning altogether. From a humble seating tool of the most elementary kind (read stone) , ‘bench’ now bestows pride of place to the most exalted of workers - the software engineers. It is an accepted rite of passage, a ritual to mark the transition of an

human being from college kid with scraggly beard to a respected programmer with a scraggly beard! It acts as a cushioning agent, protecting it’s users from zealous deployment managers intent on seperating people from their comfort zones. It is a mother, a father, a brother, the promised land, call it what you will! It is BENCH. To be ‘benched’ means to be marked up for greater things in life. It is a dichotomy, a two faced Harvery Dent of the software world in that it is where most engineers want to be yet don’t want to be!Its patrons refuse to accept that they are ‘benched’ yet they don’t want to leave its warmth. Warmth?? Yes, it has already been warmed up by someone else before you arrived! Kursi garam rakho yaar... :) Now, you - my patient readers would think I am some kind of manager in a large MNC making fun of the only place in the corporate that is not funny at all! Relax my friends, I am not a manager, much less a deployment guy. I, friends, Romans, and countrymen, was a humble bencher until the corporate won over and put me to work. Thus ended my days of pasture where I could graze quietly and contemplate life. Also ended my lazy,hazy,and dreamy days where I could ‘cook’up inane ideas for upliflting myself- like funky skits that parody the very life I was going to live, the silly crosswords that revealed that I did not know how to spell, the enless cups of free chai and kaapi that bled the machine dry! Gone are those glorious days of playing truant while managers frantically searched for me and zereoed in on some unsuspecting bencher. Those warm, innocent, and happy days lasted just 2 months before duty called and I rose to the occasion. Instead, what remains is a fond memory of those days and a wistful nostalgia for days gone by! Okay, enough reminiscing. I think I am growing old...in 2008. Cut to 2009 and it’s a different world. The corporates have decided that they would make bench hotter than hell and definitely hotter than Bipasha Basu! In the name of progress they have decided to promote people quickly -from bench to chair :) Yes, shorter bench leads to quicker, faster, & more work - leads to happy corporate - leads to unhappy employee. What seemed like an eternal honeymoon lasting upto 2 years in the good old days, now is a brief affair before the inevitable divorce! Vanishing clients & shrinking profit lines have prompted MNCs to move people out of bench and into chairs quicker than before. Focus is on ‘billing’,that which hits the client , and utilization , that which hits you! In plain jargon, billing is the amount of money your company charges the client for putting you to work and utilization is the number of hours you worked on the project. So, the number of hours you worked multiplied by your per hour rate is what the company earned from your efforts. It’s not as simple as I put it but it serves our purpose. Therefore, the shorter you are on bench, the better it is for the corporate. Typially bench period lasts upto 3 months, giving corporates the necessary time to locate projects with suitable requirements across their landscape and deploy you. Sometimes it is immediate - unfortunately, while at other times it is longer than a Himesh Reshammiya song. The trick is to patiently hone your skills and network with higher-ups so that you get deployed quicker. The interim period could be utilised for any activity one chooses to indulge in. It could be as mundane as mugging up tech fundaes or as interesting as chatting up with bench friends in other companies, creating Facebook/Orkut profiles (I did), celebrating Birthdays, staring at your shrinking bank balance, or a gorgeous Mallika Sherawat on the sly! Yes sirs and madams, bench is the only place where you can all the things you ever wanted to do in life but didn’t know where to do them! Welcome to bench...come sit! Raghuram Rallapalli MSIT Alumni