Software application development
This blog is intended to provoke discussion and exchange between like minded software application developers, engineers, architects, project managers - and keen hobbyists too.
Friday 21 December 2007, 8:50 PM
Santa’s Secret Software Solutions
Santa’s Workshop - North Pole – December 21, 2007.
At a packed press conference this morning, Santa Claus briefed a crowd of journalists and elves on his new technology-driven Christmas programme designed to bring presents to children around the world using a more tightly managed infrastructure. Using a range of mobile devices and a more intelligently deployed data centre, Santa aims to make this Christmas the best yet.
In higher demand than ever at a wide selection of shopping malls and plazas across the land, the new on-demand “Santa-As-A-Service” solution will mean that grottos everywhere can supply personal appearances to children as when times are busiest. Using his new GPS-powered sleigh, Santa intends to accurately map out his present delivery schedule prior to deploying his reindeer skywards.
Facing an increasing amount of criticism under data privacy laws as he does, Santa aims to store all the names and addresses of the children that write to him only for the appropriate period of time before he shreds them and uses them as reindeer bedding. Using an intuitively built relational database, Santa has been tracking all child behaviour over the last year and will be distributing gifts based on a new algorithmic calculation of whether each child has been ‘naughty or nice’.
“This has been a very rewarding build up period to our main deployment ‘go-live’ session which we envisage putting into place on December 24th,” said Santa Claus. “My elves have been able to bulk order raw materials for present making using a variety of online suppliers and I think we’re well prepared for the big day. I’ve installed a new black box flight recorder on the sleigh so that if I get fed too many mince pies and brandy I can hook in auto-pilot to regional air traffic control beacons and get home safely.”
Using online translation tool software Santa has been able to localise label greetings on all children’s presents. He has also plugged into a variety of social networking sites to see whether children have actually been behaving and in sharing the true spirit of Christmas.
Closing this morning’s press conference Mr Claus added, “I’ve got Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby on my iPOD, basically I guess you could say I’m ready to go.”
Thursday 20 December 2007, 3:04 PM
Shrink wrapped grid computing
As we get more and more used to parallel processing and multi-core architectures I’m noticing an encroaching tide of technology threads that are encouraging us to consider High Performance Computing and Grid Computing as more easily accessible options for intensive computing environments.
High Performance Computing and High Performance Technical Computing in my experience are cluster-based highly complex propositions not undertaken lightly. They typically suit the financial services and defence sectors as well as laboratory-driven research projects. But, as is the way with the technology industry in general, the option for this power to be made more accessible for any type of solution is something that more than one cluster and grid management vendor is keen to convince you of.
Are data intensive applications across a grid becoming more accessible? Are we really seeing a reduced level of complexity for enabling enterprise-class resource sharing and availability? Will companies soon be able to build and deploy models for the grid with greater ease? If they are deployed, will these apps run with the claimed speeds (usually something like ten times faster) they are purported to boast? Will developers be increasing encouraged to develop skills for this space? I’m not sure – but there are plenty of companies out there trying to push this idea. Is it dropping in your inbox yet? It’s in mine, that’s for sure.
NB – SUB NOTE:
If you’re wondering where I’m getting all this grid malarkey from, I think it’s interesting to note that it’s not just the usual suspects. If I said, “tell me everything you know about grid computing in 10 seconds…” you’d almost certainly mention IBM, maybe Oracle and Sun, you’d probably say “clusters” and if you’re a fan of bbb.co.uk/news like I am you might mention the grid computing project launched by the BBC, the Met Office and others back in 2003 which aimed to get 50,000 users to volunteer their home computing power in the name of climate change.
Today though, it’s independent companies such as Platform Computing, community-driven bodies such as the Open Grid Forum, web pioneers such as ebay and projects supported by the European Commission's IST programme such as XtreemOS (which aims to build and promote Linux-based support for next generation grids) that are coming to the fore. Is grid computing about to enjoy a renaissance then? Definitely maybe I’d say.
Wednesday 19 December 2007, 6:33 PM
Requirements gap: real or perceived?
I used to be involved with the Australian media tech scene and it’s an interesting place from a software perspective. Being as geographically and temporally separated as they are, the country is a perfect microcosm for English speaking technologies to be tested prior to roll out (and I understand Vista was trialed down under in just such as way). Keep your opinions to yourself on that one I think.
That said, the Aussies are fiercely proud of their own home grown software successes. So, hitting my inbox overnight I see news from an enterprise modeling software provider called Holocentric, who has released the first (so they say) business process modeling solution specifically built for system requirements & fulfillment.
This technology is supposed to bridge the "requirements gap" (their words, not mine) between business people and IT systems providers. But hang on, that’s what the requirements process is in the first place isn’t it? It’s about existing in the gap and forming the bridge or indeed bridges.
Rather than focus on satisfying a list of requirements - the approach taken by traditional requirements management solutions - Holocentric says their product focuses on satisfying desired business outcomes through business process modeling. They say that employing a visual model to capture peoples’ roles and derive requirements produces more effective results… and that requirements based upon roles lead to higher quality user acceptance, testing and implementations.
OK OK I buy that to some degree, but any developer worth their salt will argue that you can’t define all requirements within a system based upon roles – there has to be rules too. There will always be some general system level requirements for core functionality that are based upon rules right?
Also, I think you could argue that roles are ‘implied’ in accurately managed requirements and that the requirements themselves by their nature define functions that support roles in the business. But this point could get too conceptual and cyclical if we go any further.
Either way – I guess it’s a case of MIND THE GAP. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Tuesday 18 December 2007, 5:08 PM
Flawed waterfall software
In an attempt to prove that I can turn any weekend away into a software development blog, I couldn’t pass up the chance to mention that these last few days I have been lucky enough to take a road trip from Washington DC to Niagara falls. No prizes then for guessing that I am trying to ‘crowbar in’ a reference to the waterfall model of software development into my usual diatribes.
The genesis of the term ‘waterfall’ when used to describe software development is frequently attributed to a piece of written work in 1970 by one Winston W Royce. Although Royce omitted to use the actual term himself, he did describe a sequential ‘waterfall-like’ software development methodology and made it clear that it was an essentially flawed concept. The model’s inherently inflexible and non-iterative form make it worthy of note, but unpopular for most modern software engineering application development environments.
Using a little artistic license if I may. A similar set of flawed software references can be seen when looking out over Lake Erie as it rushes headlong into a series of spectacular drops:
1 – not all software projects are the same: the straightforward American falls looks remarkably regular in comparison to the wild bend of the famous horseshoe falls – describing software projects as waterfall processes looks like a dangerous assumption so far…
2 – the first result is chaos – as the water crashes down you can’t see a thing, it’s all spray, noise and confusion until the river flattens and then takes a straight course which just won’t change… hmm, I didn’t really want my software project to go off in that direction… too late now, sorry!
3 – human circumvention and bridging – there’s always the option for human factors to bridge or sidestep the flow of the falls and there are several road bridges in just such places at Niagara, so humans may decide that they don’t want to go with the flow after all…
4 – energy can be drained off to slow the project down – actually, the hydro dams at Niagara do just that, if we want to put the breaks on the project instead of letting it flow naturally we can do that…
5 – there’s always a risk taker out there – even if you think your project is being sensibly managed, there’s always some fool willing to throw themselves over the edge in a barrel isn’t there?
Tuesday 11 December 2007, 7:15 PM
Mobile search advertisements: nicer or nastier?
Recent events have conspired to expose me to a glut of mobile-related technologies from the growth of mobile-powered web access in Africa to the new revenue streams thrown up by advertising in this space. I’ve already ranted (twice I think) on how much I hate invasive ads online - and I’m not expecting to be a fan of advertising that hitches a ride on any mobile search functions I might perform in the future – but I think it’s an unstoppable inevitability. The question is, will things get better or worse?
Mobile advertising specialists argue that just as search-engine marketing has (allegedly) proven less intrusive and sometimes more effective than email-marketing, that there is potential to use sophisticated mobile search and advertising solutions to deliver a more targeted marketing campaign bringing the most relevant content to audiences. The idea is that if a mobile user is actively searching for information and is presented with relevant ads in that context, it makes it more likely to be better received and achieve higher click-throughs.
To quote from just one of the companies I’m currently talking to in order to research this subject, “An increased take-up of mobile marketing is certainly good news for mobile operators, but if this form of marketing continues to be thought of as limited to SMS and MMS, then the true potential here will not be reached. This is because the problem with marketing via SMS and MMS is that the user has no control over what he or she receives, so mobile marketing becomes another form of spam,” said Dan Olschwang CEO of mobile search and advertising company JumpTap.
This kind of more sophisticated search-based behavioural targeting is supposed to make me feel better isn’t it? I guess it doesn’t as a previous career in advertising has given me in innate distrust of any type of publicity. Perhaps I am being too judgemental, but when I am looking up… “How long can you keep eggs for?” (the last thing I looked up – I know, I need to get a life) I am not likely to start ordering the home-delivered lemon meringue pies that pop up as an option on the right hand side of the page.
I appreciate the technology side of this argument and I guess we are moving forward. I just buy my pies from the pie shop like I always have – that’s all.
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