Winds of Change

Debug it! A Book on Software Debugging

2009-07-10T20:41:00.000-07:00

Having known Paul Butcher as someone who was into software sales, it came as a pleasant surprise to see his new book on software debugging: "Debug It! Find, Repair and Prevent Bugs in Your Code". I finally got around to reading it last weekend. I was amazed by his depth of wisdom in software debugging. While most would say, "why debug, if you write code correctly?", software defects are an inevitable and unfortunate part of life. Recent evidence proves that on the average for every 8 lines of code a programmer writes, there is one defect. The defect rate does not vary much by how a expert a programmer is.

The book has a number of gems of wisdom on not only "how to fix" but also on "how not to fix" defects. Here is one of those from the book which most of us have have across at some time or the other:

int process_items(item* item_array, int array_size) {
int i;
/* For some reason array_size is off by one, so fix it up here */
array_size++;
for(i = 0; i <>
Process item_array[i]
}
}

A lot of times programmers find quick solutions to problems, and "make the bug go away", hopefully forever. Frequently not, but instead creating another defect in the process, somewhere else in the software. His recommendation of the need to always critically analyze the defect even after it is fixed is extremely relevant: "How did it ever work before?". Careful reflection, even at this stage can often provide clues and further insights not only to the defect that was fixed, but possibly finding other hidden defects too.

I also found his section on the need for automated testing very relevant in today's product development. Though some companies use that very effectively others do not invest in any automated testing. The author has also provided a good list of current popular software tools all the way from source control systems, bug tacking systems, to logging and testing tools and libraries.

Altogether the book is an easy read, with the author's flowing style. But like his recommendation on reflection after fixing a bug, the reader learns a lot more if he takes a break to reflect after every few pages he reads. Someone who was in the trade of developing software for a a few years, would readily identify with many of the gems in this book. This is a recommended read for anyone who works closely in the software industry, be it a developer, a tester or even a product manager.

Analysis of a failed Software Project

2009-05-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

A real life project:

The project was to create an automated way of handling the back office work, with different interfaces and protocols to customers, data warehousing company, end users, hardware vendors, etc.

The project started with some discussion of schedules and features. The architect was bright. He could come out with innovative solutions to problems fast. Very inspiring and motivational to the team.

No one bothered to document anything, as everyone was “busy” and working day and night to meet the customer deliveries.Programmers were busy writing code, and then fixing it when the next set of customer requirements came. Everyone was busy "working". The architect worked the most, spending sleepless nights at the office.

Deadline after deadline slipped, and the project was slowly inching along. At the end of the year, a prototype with some features was available for integration. Neither complete nor exactly based on any specifications.

Then it came time to deploy the project with the first major customer. After technical meetings between the two companies, and initial tests, it was discovered that many of the customer message formats were incompatible with the system message formats. “So what, we can fix our side overnight to handle your message format” was the kind of mentality on the company side.

The message formats issue was fixed. But not having undergone any serious tests, other parts of the software started breaking. New bugs were reported everywhere.

Once real load started hitting the servers, it was observed that the response times were getting slower and slower. The system was crashing more often. An architecture review was conducted. It revealed many deficiencies in the architecture. No coding standards were neither available in the company nor were any followed by any developer.

After a few heated meetings in the months after that, the architect was let go. Some of the staff, complaining of long hours left. Some did not see the company going anywhere, since that was the one major project for the company.

What were the problems?

Inexperienced people. A lot of pressure was placed on the architect, who was the best of the pack. Though he did a great job, the work was far too much for one person. Most of the people did not have any real world project deployment experience.

Communication and Motivation. Though the higher management got along very well, team work stopped there. Company goals never made it to the trenches. Motivation was missing.

No Processes. In the haste to get things out fast, no one cared about defining a software development process. No clearly planned software requirements, schedules, testing, etc. Disciplined software development is the only way to produce software!

How about Risk management?

The company developed its own risk management practices, and paid a lot of attention to certain aspects of risks:

Risk of losing critical data – Backups were done and stored in different parts of the country at the end of every week.

Security risks – The premises were well secured with closed circuit security systems. Highly secure algorithms were used to transfer financial information, from system to system. Logistics of secure data was clearly planned. All sorts of precautions were taken to prevent hacking into the company systems.

Risks for hardware not being available. Various alternative plans were formulated to make sure the project is not affected, in case some of the hardware vendors did not cooperate to produce the customized hardware.

The company spent significantly on an external security consultants to point out flaws in the system.

However, management seemed to have forgotten the biggest risk: software development.

While this reads like a story, this scenario is repeated each day in countless organizations across the world. Software development risks are still not appreciated to this day by most organizations or management.

New Mantra for the Economy: Save and Invest

2009-04-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

Save and invest..Is that the New Obama Mantra?

"We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand," he said, invoking a Biblical reference to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. "We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest, where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad."

Is this going to be a radical change from the consumerism the country has always preached and practiced? Would this be a sustainable model for future growth? Lets see.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090414/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_economy

Satyam: Where does Integrity Start From?

2009-01-08T13:54:00.000-08:00

The events in Satyam Computer Services ( the IT outsourcing giant from India) have shocked all of us. Satyam in Sanskrit ironically means "truth". We all react in our own way. A lot of us react to it as if it is part of the larger problem of corporate corruption. Some call for stricter accounting rules, regulations and checks.

My belief is honesty and integrity should start in small things with each of us. How many of us can claim to have been honest all the time, even in simple things where it is easier to be honest Here is a story from a coworker friend:

"I went to an Arts and Handicrafts shop at commercial street in Bangalore to buy some souvenirs from India. When I asked for the bill, the guy tells me: If you need a bill, then you will have to pay Rs 11 more. I said, I was willing to pay the extra money. He immediately asked whether I was buying for a company. I said no it is a personal shopping. In sheer disbelief he asked me why I wanted to pay more. I said I would like to encourage taxes being paid properly. He looked at me for a few seconds before writing me the bill. This was not my first experience and I am sure most of us in India deal with these types of transactions "normally".

-

Isn't leadership about authenticity and integrity? Should it not start with each one of us ? Or can we get around by enacting more rules and regulations to fix the problems?

Managing Creativity

2008-12-31T16:20:00.000-08:00

Any reasonably successful business requires tremendous amount of creativity from all stake holders. Adapt to customer requirements, present products to consumers in appealing ways, designing innovative products, optimize algorithms, streamline business processes.. the uses of creativity is never ending.

Easy to stiffle creativity. But how can one improve one's creativity and that of one's team? I find the following four factors extremely important:

Private Space - A private undisturbed space is central to get the creative juices going. I have seen programmers, working on difficult problems take their laptops to the nearest Starbucks and work from there to prevent disruptions at work. While private offices for every employees though desirable may not be feasible. In this case at lest ample number of comon private spaces where employees can work undisturbed would help.

Encouragement - Encourage members to present their ideas or views without critical comments. Ideas at birth are fragile. It is easily killed by a few well intentioned critical words from another and might reduces creativity in the future.

Value creativity - Valuing members' creativity further encourages more creativity from all. Various rewards may be offered for members who come up with innovative solutions.

Appreciate Diversity - People are diverse, in their upbringing, education, influences, belief etc. A diverse workplace encourages creativity. We should allow (as much as possible) free expression, and show mutual respect, to allow free flow of thoughts and ideas.

Performance appraisals often place a lot on an employee who works "hard" or "getting the numbers" or "meeting targets". It is surprising how creativity is rarely a significant criteria in performance appraisals.

Does Regulation Solve the Corporate Ills?

2008-12-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

The media says the US banks have all gone bankrupt..

Which industry is not "bankrupt" at some point or the other ? At any time, for any industry, its health is a matter of degree. While the business is good, no one complains. Executives take more risk. Sooner or later, "business as it is done" becomes unsustainable, and the house of cards come crashing down.

Will regulation help to prevent future collapse in any industry? I do not think so. If regulation is passed to make lending standards in banks better, the collapse of the future will in all probability not come from that particular issue. But some other part of the chain becomes the next weak point. It crashes at the weakest link.

As an investor, how can one keep one's portfolio safe from volatility as much as possible, but at the same time earning a "reasonable" rate of return?

As a company executive, when does one say, enough is enough, lets scale down our appetite for risk?

All tips welcome!

Yahoo for Sale! What went wrong?

2008-11-06T20:06:00.000-08:00

Some milestones of Yahoo!:

2004:
Yahoo! upgrades the email account capacity from 4MB to 1GB to compete with Google.
Yahoo! introduces better AJAX interface to email
Yahoo! launches its own search engine technology.
Yahoo! announces it will practice paid inclusion for its search service.
Yahoo! launches beta version of its video search engine.

2005:
Yahoo! announces interoperability with MS Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.
Yahoo! launches Yahoo! Music
Yahoo! launches blogging and social networking service Yahoo!360
Yahoo! acquires photo sharing service Flickr
Yahoo! acquires widget engine Konfabulator
Yahoo! acquires del.icio.us.

2007:
Yahoo! releases new version of Yahoo!Mail allowing messages to mobile phones
Yahoo! Mail provides unlimited storage.

2008:
Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo! Yahoo rejects offer
Yahoo in Talks with News Corporation and Google on possible mergers.

Yesterday:
Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang says company is ready for sale!

So where did yahoo go wrong in all these years?

1. Biting More than Yahoo! can Chew
Yahoo! announced a large number of services in 2004/2005. New interfaces to its email, new search technology, new acquisitions, new social networking, etc. All of these services added up to a lot of development work for Yahoo, which it could not handle. This resulted in sacrificing quality for quantity. Google, on the other hand grew slowly, perfecting each new service gradually over time (even with betas extending to years).

2. If you break for lunch, you are lunch.
The quote by Jerry Yang summarizes Yahoo!'s state today, ironically. Yahoo! had underestimated the competition. Yahoo was forced to upgrade both its email and search service once Google came along with alternate better services. The company was slow in developing new technologies, probably because of trying to do too many things at the same time.

3. Forgetting the Customer
Many of Yahoo! services were not designed for ease of use, or did they keep customer usability needs in mind. in 2004, Yahoo! attempted to gain more revenues at the expense of customer dissatisfaction by placing paid listings as the top search results.
The Yahoo! Maps did not tolerate misspelling of street names, town names etc, to work correctly. The Yahoo landing page was quite cluttered with too many links and services. All of these and others served to alienate the users, and forcing users to find better competing services.

Generational Differences in the Workplace

2008-10-04T07:10:00.000-07:00

“Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it” - George Orwell

Any organization today cannot function effectively without managers understanding their employees and vice versa. Motivational factors vary from employee to employee. What are employees looking for at work? What kind of values do they have? What modes of communications do they prefer? All these are interesting issues to be investigated to get the most out of a person (or employee).

A number of approaches to understanding workers have been investigated and used historically. Some involve analyzing workers by birth-sign, graphology, birth order, psychological tests etc. Ranging from science to pseudoscience. They have provided varying degrees of success. It is surprising how many organizations still follow some of these methods which have never been proven scientifically.

However one very effective way of understanding employees in the context of the American workplace is to look at the age of an employee and understand the influences of the environment in which he grew up. The workers of each generation faced unique challenges, grew up in various economical climates, family systems, cultures etc. All of these help shape the worker in his future life.

There has been a lot of research on this topic. Various names have been coined for people of each generation. Here is a generally accepted list of generations used in America.

Traditionalists born 1922 - 1943
Baby Boomers born 1946-1964
Generation X born 1964- 1979
Cold Generation Y born 1981 - 1984
Millennials born 1980 - 2000

Each generation of people have interesting unique characteristics. Understanding the characteristics of each generation of workers helps the manager work more effectively with them. They grew up in different family structures. Attitudes towards money, authority, institutions, personal beliefs were different. All of these and many more factors shape the person. The views, expectations of their job, of their world is hence vastly different. What are the unique issues with each generation? What are their expectations from a job? What motivates them ?

The following series of posts attempts to answer those questions. Studying the characteristics of each generation goes a long way at resolving and avoiding conflicts, getting the best out of your people, managers and workers alike.

A declining Euro ?

2008-08-06T18:01:00.000-07:00

The question of where the global currency exchange rates are headed for is one which has a more than casual interest to most corporates these days. The exchange rates between the American dollar and the European Euro is especially interesting, which are indicative of the two of the larger global economies.

Arguments for a weaker Euro:

- Currently the Euro is fairly overvalued relative to the US dollar based on purchasing power parity (PPP). The tendency is for the PPP to equalize in an efficient marketplace, bringing down the value of the Euro.

- The Euro is at an all time high now versus the dollar.

- With less developed countries joining EU in the future, the union will have to undertake more infrastructure and services development work in the newer countries to bring it up to par with the rest of EU, thus weakening the EU economy in general and hence the Euro.

- There are already reports indicating EU is already n the lowest growth periods in its history. Is it going towards a recession?

Arguments for a falling US Dollar

- The economic crises in the USA, related to mortgages, credit card industry are far from over, this could result in the Fed reducing interest rates further.

- There may be a policy decision to let the dollar fall in value to encourage more exports and discourage imports, considering the trade deficit the US is currently in.

- As the Euro gains more popularity, forex reserves held by countries may shift more to Euros instead of Dollars, which could strengthen the Euro.

On the whole I feel, the natural tendency may be for the Euro to gain further against the dollar on a shorter time frame. However the EU central banks may intervene to lower the value of the Euro, for their own reasons. For one a weaker Euro will encourage more exports from EU, and may be better for the EU economy. It would also encourage more foreign direct investment in EU.

Management Issues Today

2008-07-31T07:32:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the reader who happens to stumble by!