Software Engineering Technology Transfer…the way forward or the way back

1. Software Engineering Technology Transfer…the way forward or the way back by Assoc. Prof. Karl Reed,FACS, FIE-Aust., MSc,ARMIT Chair IEEE-Computer Society Tech. Council on Software Engineering Governor, IEEE-Computer Society(1997-1999,2000-2002), Director, Computer Sys. & Software Engineering Board, ACS, Department of Computer Science & Computer Engineering, La Trobe University Hon. Visiting Professor, Middlesex University liberal use will be made of ideas from Jason Baragry, David Cleary and Jacob Cybulski “those who fail to study history are bound to repeat it”

2. Some Definitions.. • TECHNOLOGY AWARENESS… • To be aware of some aspect of the technology not currently being used, and to understand it well enough to decide to adopt or not to adopt. • TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER… • To achieve technology its adoption to a level proficiency which permits use to produce products and services on a commercial basis, or their improvement • Conditions of Necessity • The creation of an irresistible desire for or belief in the value of some technology that leads to its adoption as a matter of urgency • Demonstration that new technology can solve some commercial problem or improve some process

3. Obviously we are.. We’re doing research aren’t we? You mean it may not be? If it were believed to be true, there’d be no real TT problem. Our Problem… • A.Are we making a real improvement? • B.How can we be sure this is true?

4. Stages of SE... Immature methodologies, Fortran, Cobol, Assembler-70’s,telephone systems Customer req dominate,ROI mandatory Cottage industry, but well intentioned Systems Analysis and Design methodologies 70’s-80’s Mature? Body of Knowledge but no universal success Determinate, quality driven, high reliability, business model oriented Formal Methods, info. Hiding, architecture, strong typing, CASE,RE,SCS,formalised testing, banking networks,internet,PC-OS, OO,CMM,Process Modelling,re-use, cots,dig.flight control systems,EFTPOS Cottage industry, reversion to the old-days Unreliable, technology history free, ROI independent-business model? s/w surprises Large-scale s/w, comsumer goods,engine management systems, ABS time to market, extreme programming, web systems, free-ware, 94-00’s

5. Where Are We? Traditionalist’s View DISASTER IN WAITING! • Bowsers that are limited • Time-To-Market web-application deployment • 16 year old wunder-kinder throwing systems together • poorly designed functionality NO PROBLEMS MATE! Modernist’s View • rapidly deployed functionality • rapid evolution of systems to meet customer needs • conventional approaches being left behind • the old do not understand the new

6. To many surprises….!!!(nsf report on s/w research 1998) “F1. Current software has too many surprises. The sources of surprise are poorly understood.” • “F2. Key sources of software surprise include immature or poorly integrated software domain sciences, construction (product) principles, and engineering processes. Software research emphases have swung from process to product research, with weak coverage of domain sciences and integration.” Sources of surprises... Real and apparent ambiguity in the means of representation of systems, e.i. Languages (cf 3 pages of c++ with 3 pages of government regulations)(Reed, 2000)

7. No surprises….!!!(nsf report on s/w research 1998) “F1. Current software has too many surprises. The sources of surprise are poorly understood.” Sources of surprises... Real and apparent unpredictability in behaviour... “Teenagers have less trouble with PC software because they are adept at playing computer games” Charles Wright, editor Melbourne Age “green pages” computer section 2000 “Building ‘bots’ that play computer games with near human competence is not that hard” US researcher in AI….

8. By way of Illustration...Some Contradictions…… and confusion 1. Software Architecture.. ‘not immutable, not always determinable a’priori,multiple versions in one artefact, retrofitable…. Analog with “built” systems not clear. 2. Software Process.. CMM vs fine-grained process independent, Time To Market vs Planned Process, Phase incompletedness, Extreme Programming. 3. Software Process... Often mandated, but not followed… few detailed studies similar to production engineering (see Hess) 4. Re-use… not successful, yet components industry emerging 5. Engineering & SE.. Poor choices of analogues from traditional domains, e.g. “immutable components”

9. Some Contradictions…… and confusion (cont’d) 6. SWEBOK.. Organised body of knowledge opposed by leading SE players. 7. Prescriptive Design processes... only slowly beginning to appear, perhaps via UML. 8. Requirements Engineering... Cannot always be completed in advance..may be continuous part of the implementation process... 9. Software Crisis… yet increasingly, successful large-scale applications are ubiquitous 10. High Quality training for 30 yrs.. Yet each new s/w development wave starts with a blank mind, e.g. web-based computing 11. Documentation matters but.. It’s seldom actually done

10. The optimists view of technology transfer.. 10

11. A Tech-Transfer Model 11

12. Our Knowledge of Industry The Australian Example.. THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY OF THE LATE 1960'S AND EARLY 1970'S WAS… a) PACKAGE (and hence re-use) ORIENTED A wide range of packaged software on 16 bit and mainframes was produced. E.G. Accounting, payroll, engineering design, manufacturing, insurance, etc. b) KNEW ABOUT PORTABILITY… Many of these were transported between different OS and machines. One suite of packages in assembler (50klocs) was "ported" to at least 6 different systems c) RECOGNISED THE RE-USE OF SKILLS , IDEAS AND DESIGN… The concept of "the continuity of experience" syndrome, the human "experience factory". FORMAL PROCESS MODELS DO NOT APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN IMPORTANT

13. Australia (cont’d) / THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY BY THE MID 1980'S WAS…(cont'd) a) A HIGH-LEVEL TOOL DEVELOPER Developed "4GL's" and APPLICATION GENERATORS Both HP and DataGeneral used Australian products for their early Application Generators The product Lansa (ASPECT) is one of three Application Generators for the S/38 (now AS/400) b) PRODUCING LARGE-SCALE MAINFRAME PACKAGES & SYSTEMS… Major international supplier of insurance s/w, Major developer of large-scale s/w for Govt. and Industry. c) UNDERSTOOD PROTOTYPING CDA used SNOBOL in the mid-1970's for protoyping commercial systems.

14. Australia (cont’d) / BY THE LATE 1980'S EARLY 1990'S WAS… a) PRODUCING OO LANGUAGES AND TOOLS… The language OCHRE… b) UNDERTAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE STUDIES… Productivity studies based on function points (Aust. Software Metrics Assoc.) SPICE (Software Quality Association/ACS) c) DEVELOPING S/W QUALITY STDS AND CERTIFICATION… AS3563, S/W Assurance Standard being mandated by Govt. Software Quality Institute lead by Geoff Dromey at Griffith Univ. d) OTHER THINGS… F-P estimating tools, OO based specialists consultancies…commercial use of Formal Methods on small scale e) TTM competency… F-P estimating tools, OO based specialists consultancies…commercial use of Formal Methods on small scale

15. THE HISTORY…(cont'd) / THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY'S WEAKNESSES… a) LIMITED INTERACTION WITH RESEARCH COMMUNITY… b) JEALOUS AND SECRETIVE ABOUT DEVELOPMENT METHODS c) ABSENCE OF TARGETED RESEARCH CENTRES d) NEEDED GREATER EMPHASIS ON WINDOWS & MacIntosh S/W / THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY'S ASSETS… a) Good supply of well trained graduates in CS and EDP More than 14 000 p.a.! (now 7 SE degrees in Australia) b) Strong managerial/ technical culture of package and product development

16. Australia (cont’d) / THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY's PARAMETERS… TOTAL SALES…US$1.8B S/W PRODUCT @ 50% of total DOMESTIC SHARE OF PRODUCT @ 40% EXPORTS US$500M (1993 FIGURES) by comparison, the Japanese s/w industry has less than 15% of T.O. in s/w product. There are 40 Australian S/W companies selling product in Japan

17. Be able to show ROI after adoption costs (equipment + training) and productivity losses due to learning curves after adoption. (improved profit) Show resolution of competitive advantage problems (beat off competitors, maintain market share) Show new market opportunities due to new products/services Approaching Software Developers… • Technico-Commercial Drivers… the linkage • The goal is to find a high-level, one-line statement of pressing commercial issue that maps directly on to a “technology acquisition” (research) agenda (map idea to common concept base accessible to highest management) • Show an economic benefit

18. Research-Commercial Mapping… Defining Relevance Typical SE Research Agenda Australia ~ 1997 Technico-commercial Drivers 1.Re-engineering and Empirical Studies of s/w Practice, 2.Tools and Methodologies, and Design Representation, 3. Re-Use, 4. Evolving Software, 6. Object Oriented Dev. 7. Product Quality Measurement 8. Time-to-Market 9. Testing ¶ Impact of developments in run-time platforms ¶ Low-cost and evolving software ¶ User Interface Development ¶ Software Productivity ¶ Performance Predictability ¶ Software Product Quality Certification ¶ Time to Market ¶

19. The ANSEI Technico-Comercial Driver to Research agenda mapping

20. Technology Transfer Mechanisms • “Champions” in the organistions targetted.. Need to be involved by the researchers • Disclosure, workshops, training, publications, technical newspapers • Professional associations SIG’s and meetings • Wining and dinning managers • Joint trials of technology, may need to be funded by research centre…(various models, including fully profitable contracts.. Must counter lost opportunity cost problem) • “Exemplar” projects by the research centre, creating “technology pull” • Incremental technologies may be easier to adopt

21. Technology Transfer Mechanisms(cont’d) • NIH has cultural, economic and technical basis.. (It took ~ 5 years for Ada/Clean-room/OO to show an overall cost benefit cf Fortran at NASA/SEL) • 50% productivity gain needed for break-even in one learning curve time..

22. issues Baragry’s conjectures and their implications.. The work products problem… The work-products (documentation) are not appropriate to actual s/w development practice § if the methodologies are not leveraging the design process(Reed), / Documentation will not reflect design... / Documentation will be an external, non-design process… since it is based on conceptual models other than those being used!.. / S/W development processes in practice consist of “work arounds” like other prescription based systems

23. What if we had a large re-engineering project? component semantics and concept extraction.. The role of re-engineering.. S/W Archaeology... / program is a model of some real world process / exactly what “concepts” are represented in terms of non-procedure replicated code fragments? / What are their semantics? -What impact do these have on program composition? / How do these relate to different problems in the same domain? ..different problems in different domains? / How are components modified in practice and what is the outcome?

24. The role of re-engineering.. S/W Archaeology and S/W Architecture.... / recovery of standard architectures / identification of s/w construction practices, e.g. shifts from one programming style to another / development of maintainability and evolvability classifications for -- § design methodologies § architectural styles / development of maintainability and evolvability classifications for architectural styles

25. component semantics and concept extraction.. The role of re-engineering.. Architecture issues for the S/W Archaeologist / identification of design approaches which ensure that conceptual architectures are transferred to implementation / identification of standard mappings from conceptual to actual architectures which occur using different design approaches on different problems

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