In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship but never in want!
I found this Irish toast, and I liked it a lot…
Today is Women’s Christmas (Nollaig na mBan in Irish)- I heard it on the radio and asked a few people what was this tradition. In the end, Wikipedia told me: Irish men are taking on all the household duties on this day and give their spouses a day off! Very nice of them;-)
I went to a SQRL lecture today: Spencer Smith, from McMaster University, Canada , talked about the relationship between Computer Science and Software Engineering: “Is Computer Science to Software Engineering as Physics is to Civil Engineering?”
The same old debate: is Software Engineering real engineering at all?!
Went back and checked Wikipedia again:
“The term software engineering was used occasionally in the late 1950s and early 1960s, though some argue that software engineering was coined by F.L. Bauer. It was popularized by the 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference held in Garmisch, Germany, and has been in widespread use since.”
A label was applied, probably with the intent of introducing a more structured approach to an emmergent domain (or to sell it better?!)
In any case, rivers of ink have flown ever since – both pro and con…
Update: Browsing through the podcasts from IT Conversations I’ve been listening to last year, I located Alistair Cockburn’s interview on Agile Software Development who also mentioned this issue:
“Doug Kaye: How about the engineering metaphor? In what ways is software development like engineering or not like engineering?
Alistair Cockburn: Well, here’s the thing that was a surprise to me. Well, I did, again, two things. I looked at the history of the term “software engineering,” where it came from, and then I had to look at the term “engineering” itself and what does that mean. And it came around full circle in an odd way that engineering itself is to a very large extent also a cooperative game of invention and communication. So everything I said just now about developing software applies also to pretty much any engineering project, with the possible exception of bridge building, which is so candid in the books that you look stuff up, look up all the answers.
But in the history of these things as I chased it down, after the Second World War, engineering took an odd turn. And as the reading came to me that I got was after the Second Word War, there was a “discipline envy,” as we as we might call it, of applied physics. So, applied physics had done great things in the Second World War, we got atomic bombs, we got missiles, we got all that kind of stuff, all based on heavy application of math and a priori in-advanced thinking and design. And engineering got this little envy of this other discipline that we saw an increase in the amount of applied mathematics being shoved into the engineering curriculum at the major colleges after the Second World War.
In 1967, the Dean of Engineering at Harvard wrote up a thing where he said, “I think we’ve gone too far. We’ve lost the art aspect, the contact aspect.” Engineering is very sensitive to people having contact with the materials and having a deep, visceral, personal understanding of the behavior of the material they’re working with, whether it’s construction or electricity or whatever it could be, and was advocating a return. But the problem being that in the academic tradition that was building up at the time, the practitioners were getting devalued and the theoreticians were getting more valued.
Now then, I jump to the next thing. In 1968 there was this NATO conference on software engineering. And when you read the preface to that — you can find it online — in the preface, it says, “We wanted to come up with a provocative term, and so we chose this term “software engineering” as a provocative term.” That was a big shock to me when I read it because I think, like most people, they assumed that somebody had said… there was reason to believe that software development is a branch of engineering, but, in fact, what these people were saying is, “We don’t like the state that software development is, so we will throw out this word “engineering” and suggest that it should be like engineering and see what goes from there.”
So they had a big impact, but if you read through their description, they didn’t understand what engineering was. They were thinking of engineering as being lots of a priori modelling, lots of math, and all of that stuff. So they were buying in to the face that had been put on engineering, not that it was true, but the public face that had been put on engineering. If you’re inside the same conference where they interview each other and you look at what they do, when they say what works, you’ll find, “Put ten people in a room, give them lots of face to face, make sure there’s a filing cabinet, watch who uses the filing cabinets, gossip is good because it helps pass information around.” All the stuff that I write about in “Agile Software Development” put inside this cooperative game is right there under everyone’s noses when they are doing individual personal experiences and recommendations. And then you’ll find them throwing in a sentence out of the blue which is like, “Ah! We build software these days like the Wright brothers built airplanes; just build it, throw it of a cliff and see if it survives the crash,” which is wrong because the Wright brothers, they invented the wind tunnel basically, and they made tables of lifts and stuff, so they were doing real engineering.
So the people who are coining the phase “software engineering” didn’t understand engineering. It wasn’t a deduced term; it was a provocative term, in their own words. And so we’ve now come in a sense to fully believe the face value, the false face, that these guys falsely put on engineering.
So it comes around full circle when you look at it back again; there’s a lot of similarity between software development and engineering, but not the obvious one. It’s that they’re both examples of cooperative games of invention and communication.”
January 04 2006 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
I keep on lecturing people that blogs are like Tamagotchi, you have to write regularly in order to keep them alive, and I am the first not to follow what I am preaching!
I guess I have to overcome two major mental obstacles:
– that even if it’s fun and I like doing it, blogging is not a distraction, it is part of my work and I don’t have to experience any guilt when I feel like blogging;
– I don’t have to persevere in postponing to blog about one topic until I fulfill my self-imposed duty of finishing an older draft – this strategy won’t take me anywhere!
After I left my parents’ home to go to the university in the capital city, expecting to get liberated from all the strict rules they were imposing on me, I discovered with astonishment that I was re-inforcing those rules on myself more severely than my parents used to do it.
Old habits die hard – and it looks like I can’t prevent the history from repeating itself. My current position gives me all the freedom I could have ever dreamed of, and – probably because no one else is imposing me anything – here I am making new stupid rules for myself!
Well, lots of things happened since my last post. I missed the Social Computing seminar at Oxford, but then I also missed the TechCamp in Dublin because of a bad flu.
I was invited to give a lecture on Social Software at Trinity College in Dublin at the end of October – oh, my, oh my! what a Cinderella feeling I had entering the main gate at Trinity! I used to dream that place night and day back in 2000, when my paper got accepted at the IS/IT Evaluation Conference but unfortunately I couldn’t find the funding to attend!
Teaching at Trinity – nice experience, bright students, impressive atmosphere! When I asked if they ever tried to contribute to the Wikipedia, the students pointed me to this article😉
Then I decided to skip the Fringe at KCC Europe – too much work to do, nobody was able to tell me who else was going there, the knowledgenetworker wiki page was last updated in July. It sounded to me like a silence conspiration – or maybe I was looking for excuses?! I’m sorry I missed it now, I feel kind of disconnected from the KM community. And I still wonder why so few people blogged about!
I started a new blog at elgg – this is why – trying to support a bunch of young people who really deserve it. Time is never enough, my involvment in that project is not the one I’d wanted it to be, but I still hope it will make a difference…
Then I had to travel to Romania, for the last meeting in the Pellea project, the one who provided me with the chance to organise that online blogging course in Romanian last year. The time was short, the weather changing from Indian summer to snow and frost, and there was no way to meet everyone and to do all the work I planned.
On the way back, a short break in Amsterdam – beautiful city, lots of hidden treasures, magic places like this one, I’ll be always happy to go back there. A few misadventures in restaurants ( I was served a “vegetable soup” that proved to contain a big piece of meat, 2 1/2 h spent waiting for one pancake), but the biggest surprise was reserved for the Dublin airport at my return.
The immigration officer told me I am not allowed to enter Ireland, because I lack a visa. A 24kg suitcase, a sore throat and 10 days of travel behind, this was the last thing I needed. I tried to explain no one asked for a visa when I came back from Frankfurt, I showed him my residence card, and I was pretty sure I was right. In the end, I proved to be wrong, the documents I have by now only allow me to stay in Ireland, but not to travel back and forth.
So this is the end of travel for this year – no more ‘s-Hertogenbosch for the final meeting of the PACE project. A pity – I would have loved to participate in the conference organised on this occasion and say good-bye to the partners I worked with in the last 2 1/2 years!
But…you can’t have them all, isn’t it?!
December 01 2005 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tomorrow at Oxford, the seminar on “Social Computing & The Organisation“.
Sounds like a great event! Let’s keep an eye on it – in case Piers Young will find the time to blog it!
Unfortunately, I still don’t have a British visa.
But I’m looking forward to next week’s TechCamp in Dublin!
October 06 2005 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
The European Conference on Knowledge Management is hosted by the University of Limerick this year. Most of the guests arrived yesterday, and we had a cocktail and a nice dinner together. Academic Conferences did a great job with the organization, as they did in every year.
I was so happy to meet Dan Remenyi, Sue Nugus and their whole team again!
Yesterday, I met David Gurteen in person, and we had an interesting talk over dinner. I guess we annoyed a bit the others with our blog–wiki–Lilia–Ton–Martin jargon, but we tried to convince them it was worth it at least to have a look at the Social Software phenomenon.
Bernard Marr gave his keynote speech this morning.
David Gurteen will run a knowledge-cafe this afternoon.
Charles Despres will deliver a speech after the banquet at the Bunratty Castle.
And Larry Prusak will give the other keynote speech tomorrow morning.
It’s amazing how much energy I can get from being in the middle of “my kind of people”.
I don’t experience hunger, sleep or thirst anymore… I guess I’m in a state of flow😉
I’ll have to run back now.
Btw, Carla Verwijs is here too – she might be blogging the event!
Few photos already on Flickr!
September 08 2005 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
I just arrived in Frankfurt at the Haus der Jugend for the Wikimania.
Somebody showed me Jimbo Wales few minutes ago, and from his page I found out he’s an admirer of Ayn Rand. I was talking to my room mate few minutes ago about how her novels changed my whole perspective.
The atmosphere is terrific, wi fi is working everywhere ( despite some worries) – actually I’m on the top of my bed right now! – and I’m going to have a shower before joining the others for dinner.
I already met Tsahi Hayat on the bus, I’m looking forward to listening to his presentation on Saturday.
Technorati Tag: WikiMania
August 04 2005 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
Looking at my Blogger account, I realised I haven’t posted a word in the last 4 weeks. I have a lot of drafts, some of them with photos and links, but I never found the time to finish them.
I guess I’ll give up blogging forever if I’ll continue this way.
Well, first it was an anti-procrastination strategy. I told myself I’ll be allowed to blog at the end of the day, because I have to put work on the first place – and this is how I ended with all those drafts. Now I realise I’m procrastinating blogging too – I can’t find my motivation to refine a post after weeks!
I guess the best thing to do would be to forget about the drafts. They were all interesting, but they are “old news” by now. And wipe out the guilt – looks like I’m the only one who can absolve me of this sin!
Of course, I have plenty of excuses. I’m working on this new project. I moved into a new apartment(it’s literally brand new!). I had a dear guest from Germany and we spent time together driving through the South of the island. I gave my “house warming” party. I am connecting to new people…
But none of them is good enough for having neglected my blog for such a long time. I repent, and I’m back to writing and posting!
July 24 2005 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
I arrived yesterday in Ireland, flying from Duesselforf -Weeze to Shannon airport.
I had to spend the night before in Cologne, as the airport bus was leaving at 5:30 am.
Picked up a place I knew years before, and it didn’t disapoint me: no credit card needed, a clean, peaceful and friendly place, supportive people, and…more computers in the lobby!
In Limerick, I had one hour to get to the University, and another hour to take posession of my desk and brand-new Dell computer, to say hello to my new colleagues and to regain my breath, before attending Erran Carmel‘s presentation organised by the ISERC. I recorded it on my MP3 stick, but later on I found out it was actually recorded on video by the ISERC (the link to it can be found on the bottom of the page, and the slides are also available for download). The presentation was titled “Offshoring – Distance Matters”, and it was a comprehensive review of the problems raised by offshoring (not the same thing as outsourcing).
Carmel’s most recent book, Global Software Teams: Collaborating Across Borders and Time Zones (High Performance Cluster Computing), speaks about the same problems.
After the presentation, Liam Bannon’s team of the SOC-GSD project (that’s us!) and Brian Fitzgerald’s team of the Agile Approaches project had the chance of a less formal talk with prof. Carmel – a sort of round table were different points oof view were exposed, and the guest tried to answer to a few questions.
All I could do was to sit there and listen – I was jetlagged/tired/impressed, I had been travelling for 2 1/2 days, but the important thing was that I was finally here, and I had the chance of attending that presentation.
In the afternoon, a supportive colleague gave me a lift and brought me back to my B&B – a Georgian style house located right in the middle of the city, where, to the great dissapointment of my landlady who intended to drag me to a pub, I slept like a baby for 12 hours.
June 09 2005 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
Finally, my little apple tree is in blossom and it looks like Spring time is here to stay. 
It’s Easter time in the orthodox countries – lots of work for preparations, followed by a couple of days when tradition forbids any kind of work: it’s eating and drinking time, people are visiting friends and parents, and taking some rest.
Difficult to bear for a workaholic like me! Usually, this is the time I reserve for reading books – the only way I can resist without touching a computer! But this year, the nice weather and the close perspective of my departure for Ireland convinced me to go on vacation for a week.
I’m so spoiled this Spring – my heart is full of love, the sun is shining, wherever I turn to, I meet friends (both off and online:-), I will start working again soon… and I’m feeling really happy!
May 01 2005 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
Another month is gone with very low blogging here. Actually, my whole last month’s life revolved around blogs: I worked on my blog course, I met Romanian bloggers, I wrote papers on blogging, I lead a workshop on blogging… And I blogged a lot in Gabrielia, my blog in Romanian language, and in my other blogs.
I tried to give a new impulse to my blogging students, challenging them to talk about a few specific topics, such as:
- do I need to use all the available blog features? What is the 20% of absolutely necessary and most used features?
- what do I do to promote my blog and what are the results?
- do my readers perceive me correctly?
- could I use my blog as a professional portfolio when looking for a new job?
- what are the advantages and disadvantages of an online course, without any face-to-face interaction?
There wasn’t much feedback. It looks like you can learn the technique, but if you miss the spirit…
There were some notable exceptions, but more about this in a later post…
I sent a paper to the Business Informatics conference organised every two years by my Alma Mater in Bucharest on the use of weblogs in education, titled “Collaborative Learning using Weblogs”. I had another topic in mind for it, but the time was very short and I thought I could base my paper on a blog post made few weeks before on blogs in education(sorry, only in Romanian, but some of the links are relevant!). The post was triggered by a information request made by a Romanian journalist from Jurnalul National while I was still in Luxembourg.
Well, bad assumption – it proved to be really difficult to turn a blog post into one section of a scientific paper. The rules of these two are completely different:
- hyperlinks in the blog post versus explanations in the paper (with the corresponding references);
- personal feelings and opinions versus objective findings;
- a friendly tone vs an impersonal one;
- free form versus an imposed structure.
I made it till the end. But I will never again assume that it will be easier to write a paper on a specific topic because I blogged on it before!
And of course, I sent an abstract to the ECKM ’05 which will take place in Limerick, Ireland, titled “At the Crossroads of Knowledge Management with Social Software”.
I intend to reuse parts of an internal report written for CRPHT on Social Software, and to have a closer look at the manner in which Social Software supports KM, with emphasis on particular KM activities at the individual, group and societal level. I’m planning to illustrate my statements with examples from various weblogs, wikis, social networking and folksonomy sites.
I’m not only “emotionally involved” with ECKM (and I have plenty of reasons to be so: participated in 3 of the 5 editions, know a lot of the “usual suspects”, member of the organising committee, Larry Prusak as keynote speaker), but I also have a particular reason to be there this year: if everything goes well, I’ll already be in Limerick in September, working on a new and exciting project.
I’m already in contact with my new team mates, as we are considering a possible participation in a workshop on Distributed Software Development in Paris, colocated with the IEEE International RE Conference 2005.
The deadline of the “User-Centered Evaluation and Online Communities” call for book chapters is at the end of the week, and I still don’t know if I will make it or not. I have a few good ideas, but there’s still a lot of work needed.
How was that nice quote? I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
Thanks, Google;-)
April 23 2005 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
A bright and exciting period of my life ended this week: the post-doctoral research stage sponsored by ERCIM came to its end this Monday. A lot of thoughts to share and conclusions to draw… Unfortunately, there was no time for blogging.
In the last three weeks, I made huge efforts to finish my papers and reports, to keep up with OSN2005, to find a new job, to empty my apartment in Luxembourg and to enjoy a tiny bit of personal life. I am really amazed that I am still on my feet – it’s been a tough, but rewarding period!
I hope to catch up in the following weeks, during my vacation in Romania – there are so many drafts on my blog I would like to finish and publish!
I’ve spent the last few days in Volmarstein, Germany, attending a Leonardo project meeting. One of the Romanian students attending my blogging course was there too, so naturally we couldn’t stop from giving the others a 5 minutes lecture about blogs and what are they good for. The conclusion? Claudia created a project blog in less than 3 minutes and invited all the team members to join. I am curious to see if the initial enthusiasm will last, and we will live to see most of them posting!
The first thing I discovered in Volmarstein was the wi fi in our hotel. It was really great to be able to stay in touch with the world while working with our colleagues located in the Ruhr valley.
And now that I’m spending one more night in Stuttgart before taking a Carpatair flight to Romania, I discovered another wi fi spot in this not-so-classy hotel found on the Internet.
I am not sure if I woke up at 4 am tempted by the wi fi, or it only made my sleepless half of the night more enjoyable.
March 05 2005 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
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