Transcript Looking Back to the Future - u

Software in Far East Asia
- A Personal Perspective Kouichi Kishida
Technical Director, SRA-KTL
Tokyo, Japan
[email protected]
http://www.sra.co.jp/people/k2/
Agenda
This talk will not give a formal or systematic view.
But a personal perspective based upon
speaker’s experience in Japanese software
industry and also various international activities.
Self Introduction
I have entered into computing world in first
as a technical translator / freelance
programmer in 1960 after dropping out
from University of Tokyo.
My major at the university was astrophysics,
but I’ve lost my interest in science.At first,
I wanted to be a painter.
Here is one of my works as a young abstract
artist.
What I’m now?
After working for a few computer-related companies,
I’ve started a small software house called SRA
in 1967.
Now I’ve half-retired from the business and
directing SRA-KTL, a R&D subsidiary of the
group.
And devoting most of my time for various volunteer
activities in domestic and international software
community.
My Volunteer Activities
Fellow of JUS: Japan Unix Society (1983 ~ )
Secretary General of SEA
Software Engineers Association (1985 ~ )
Chairman of SMSG
Software Maintenance Study Group (1990 ~ )
President of JASPIC: Japan SPI Consortium (2000 ~ )
Connection with China: (1986 ~ )
Annual International Symposium/Workshop
ICSE2006 in Shanghai
Chair of Far East Experience Track
My Contact Points in China
Prof. Dehua Ju (ASTI Co., Shanhai)
IEEE Software Editorial Member
Prof. Xichang Zhong (SEC of CAS, Beijing)
Beat Bill Gates with set-top box OS named Hopen
Prof. Kegang Hao (NW Univ, Xi’an)
Former president of the University
Prof. Huawong Chen (NUDT, Changsha)
Designed of Chinese supercomputer
Prof. Fuqing Yang (Pekin Univ, Beijing)
Top lady in Chinese software community
ICSE2006 Far East Experience
Papers
We’ve got 32 submissions from 12 countries
(117 co-authors in total)
Accepted 9 papers for regular presentation and
10 papers for poster session.
The topics of these papers represent current
concerns in the Far East.
Titles of 9 Accepted Papers
Development Technique
Reengineering Standalone C++ Legacy Systems into the J2EE Partition Distributed
Environment (China)
UML-Based Service Robot Software Development (Korea)
Analysis of the Interaction between Practices for Introducing XP Effectively (Japan)
Quality / Testing
Experiments on Quality Evaluation of Embedded Software (Japan)
Procurement of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (Hong Kong)
Detecting Low Usability Web Pages Using Quantitative Data of Users' Behavior (Japan)
Software Process
Experiences of Applying SPC techniques to Software Development Processes (Japan)
BSR: A Statistic-based Approach for Establishing and Refining Software Process
Performance Baseline (China)
Practical Approach to Development of SPI Activities in a Large Organization (Japan)
Titles of 10 Poster Papers
Efficiency Analysis of Model-based Review in Actual Software Design (Japan)
Overseas Development for a Major U.S. eCommerce Website (China)
A Series of Development Methodologies for a Variety of Systems (Korea)
A Research Framework for Empirical Software Engineering Environment
Reflected from Software Industry Structure (Japan)
Estimation of Project Success Using Bayesian Classifier (Japan)
Trust in Software Outsourcing Relationships: An Analysis of Vietnamese
Practitioners’ Views (Australia)
Improving Requirements Engineering Process for Complex System
Development through RIM (Thailand)
Software Practices in Five Asian Countries: An Exploratory Study (Philippine)
University and Industry in Synergy: A Research Journey Towards Product Lines
(Singapore)
An Experimental Comparison of Four Test Suite Reduction Techniques (China)
Some Keywords Observed
Software Process Improvement
Outsourcing
Embedded System Development
Free/Open Source Software
Government
Keyword 1:
Software Process Improvement
Bottom-Up Movement in Japan
JSPW in late 1980s
SEA-SPIN from 1996
Translation of SEI TR24 & 25 (1998)
Creation of JASPIC (2000)
Top-Down Style in Korea and China
Why ?
Strange Matching between SPI Paradigm
and Confucian Principle
Confucius said:
If names are not rectified, then language will not be in
accord with truth.
If language is not in accord with truth, then things cannot
be accomplished.
If things cannot be accomplished, then rites and music
will not flourish.
If rites and music do not flourish, then the punishment
will not be just.
If punishment is not just, then the people will not know
how to move their hands or feet.
Table for Interpretation
Names
Language
Things
Rites & Music
Punishment
People
Hand or Feet
Concepts
Process Model
Project
Method/Tools
Management
Programmers
Development Activities
Pitfall in Beautiful Logic
“Principle of Confucian Management” has a
beautiful logical structure. But it seems to be
easy to collapse.
Look at the current status of bureaucracy and
also political situation in those countries
based upon Confucian principle (China,
Japan, and Korea).
Quotation from
Sorai Ogyiu (1666 - 1728)
The fundamental concept of “Tao” (Confucianism) is too
abstract and difficult to understand.
So, legendary sacred kings invented Rites-and-Musics
as examples, which people easy to understand and
practice.
We should only inherit this spirit and think about to
make our own version of Rites-and-Musics.
Is Watts Humphrey the Sacred King for us ?
Keyword 2:
Outsourcing
Software outsourcing seems to be easy.
Large number of engineers in developing countries and they
are eager to get business.
Gap of labor costs.
Success stories of Indian software companies.
But in reality, there are several difficulties.
Language and cultural barrier.
Rapid change of specs.
Needs for close interaction with customers.
High liquidity of programmers.
Outsourcing: Case of China-Japan
Chinese software companies are now heavily
relying on outsourcing business.
They are eager to have strong connection with
Japan.
Needs for bridge engineers to paraphrase and
fix changing user requirement.
Many failure stories rather than success.
Outsourcing: SRA’s case
Not for cost saving, but to develop prototypes for
advanced software engineering tools.
Project tracking system to trace troubles in
development.
Open Web: New development environment using
open source component tools.
SOA system architecture prototype.
Problem of High Liquidity of Chinese
Human Resource
Observed tendency of young Chinese software
engineers:
Always looking for high salary.
Also want to do something technically new.
Switching job at every few months.
So, it is necessary to have project-oriented
management.
Keyword 3:
Embedded System Development
It is one of the hot topics in Japan and Korea
because governments are eager to push.
Growing demands for new real-time applications
in telecommunication, vehicle control, etc.
Needs for appropriate methodology for
hardware-software co-design & development.
Too many troubles caused by ad-hoc technical
management.
Two Interesting Movement in Japan
TEF: Testing Engineers Forum
Active discussion over the mailing list
Annual Symposium JaSST since 2003
SESSAME: : Society of Embedded Software
Skill Acquisition for Managers and Engineers
Providing training materials and semimars
Annual Workshop since 2003
Promotion of S/W Industry in Korea
Embedded S/W Engineering Center (KIPA)
Linux Engineering Center (KIPA)
Qplus & Embedded Software Toolkit (ETRI)
Best Practice (MOST & Korea Embedded S/W
Industry Council)
Support Program for Linux Migration & Service
Development using Linux for Public
Organizations
Situation in China
Chinese people are very much concerned about
the certification of software testing engineers or
organizations.
Maybe because of historical tradition of
“examination system” for selecting talents.
So, seminar business is now growing up, and
some Indian organizations are trying to enter this
market.
Growing Concern about
Product Line Software Engineering
New approach for modularization, reuse, and
domain engineering
Driving force is:
Prof. KC Kang of Postech (Korea)
Conducted a number of University-Industry joint
projects in Korea and also in Japan [*]
[*] SRA-KTL are cooperating in Japan.
PLSE and SRA-KTL
We have been cooperating with Prof. Kang to
produce an environment for embedded software
development called “ASADAL-OBJ”.
It is a combination of Prof.Kang’s system called
“ASADAL” and SRA-KTL’s 3D Graphics library
called “Jun”.
http://selab.postech.ac.kr/ASADAL-Simple_Overview.pdf
Keyword 4
Free / Open Source Software
Market is still dominated by Microsoft Windows, but
there are growing concerns and also growing market for
Free/OSS.
In Japan, there are many active grass-root movements
such as FSIJ, etc., but international contribution from
Japan is still low level.
Government is now somehow pushing the movement.
Many companies including SRA are now trying to make
business but not yet successful.
Some Industry Statistics in Japan
Linux Server Shipment
2004: 68,420 servers (13.9% share)
2007 (estimation): 140,000 servers (20% share)
Distribution for server market (2004)
Red Hat Linux 53%
Miracle Linux 22%
Turbolinux 13%
Eclipse Downloads in China
SRA and Free/OSS
The first contact was a telephone call from Richard
Stallman to me in 1987.
The trigger was an interview article on Unix Review
Magazine, which was set by Les Belady.
I was just in the political trouble with government about
SIGMA project and winning the battle with SONY News
workstation.
I had a meeting with Richard and started to support his
GNU project.
SRA and Free/OSS (continued)
We were the first commercial user of Unix in Japan. So,
made a bid contribution to the community by providing
many useful “free” tools.
Two major product we are now providing are:
Jun: Multimedia application library in Smalltalk and
Java
http://www.srainc.com/Jun/Main_e.htm
http://www.sra.co.jp/public/sra/technical/jun/link.html (Japanese)
PostgreSQL: especially multi-byte application
features
http://www.postgresql.org/
http://www.postgresql.jp/ (Japanese)
Free / OSS
Different Concerns of Government
Japan: Enterprise Server
Mission Critical Server
Korea: Embedded Linux
China: Desktop Linux
Keyword 5:
Government
We had a working group discussion at IWFST
last year.
We discussed about “What is the desirable
government action?”
Here are my presentation slides
My Own Closed Encounter
with Government
PPDS - 1975-80 (CASE Development)
SMEF - 1981-85 (Unix Environment)
Walking out from SIGMA (1986)
CMM - Long debate about “What is
SPI?”
DynC – First Experience with MOE
Basic Tendency of
Government Officials
No Long-Term Policy
Ad hoc style of decision making
Weak interest in technology
3 Major Concerns
Budget
Chairs in satellite organizations
Relation with big companys
Tentative Strategy
in My Hands
Make effective use of budget
Use at least 10% for real technology
development
Strong push for some hidden (real)
project behind the scene
Long Term Strategy
Needs for Global Perspective
Do not to be too much sensitive
about international competition
But to focus on global needs for
technology
Be careful about rapid evolution of
social environment
What We Need Now
Long term funding for:
- Very fundamental research in
software engineering for future
- Targeting 5-10 years ahead
-
Technical infrastructure for future society
Conceptual foundation of software
engineering in relation to sociology
and/or linguistics
Neurath’s Boat
We are like sailors, who on the
open sea, must reconstruct
their boat，but are never able
to start afresh from the bottom.
What Kind of Boat We Are Now on ?
OK.
Time flows in direction to the past on the same
speed I hour per hour.
Let’s looking back into the history of human
thinking.
The Book of Great Learning
edited by Zhu-Xi (16th century)
If you want to conquer the world,
at first you must govern your state properly.
To govern a state,
at first you must regulate your family.
To regulate your family,
at first you must cultivate yourself.
To cultivate yourself,
at first you must rectify your mind.
Strange Matching with
Current SPI Paradigm
World
State
Family
Ones Self
ISO Standard
CMM/CMMI
Team Software Process
Personal Software Process
Great Learning
(Continued)
To rectify your mind,
at first you must make your will sincere.
To make your will sincere,
at first you must expand your knowledge.
To expand your knowledge,
at first you must study various objects around you.
Object Orientation!
What is Software Engineering?
Is it a version of Confucianism adapted to
computing ?
If so, Far East Countries have a conceptual
advantage !?
But, Western philosophy has a same kind of
frame of thinking also.
For example: Max Weber.
Who Is the Father of OO?
Pointed out by Prof.Reenskaug (Norway)
Ideal bureaucracy of Max Weber:
(1) emphasis on form,
(2) concept of hierarchy,
(3) specialization of tasks,
(4) specified sphere of competence, and
(5) established norm of conduct for each layer .
This is also the spirit of OO!
One Step Beyond
Nakamoto Tominaga (1715 - 1746)
Front runner of Kaitokudo[*] scholars.
[*] A private school on philosophy in Osaka,18th century
He was a son of the one of the founding members of the
school.
Died very young, wrote a number of philosophical notes, but
most were lost, only two of them remain.
Very good bibliographer, but rather controversial.
His name was long time forgotten, re-evaluated as a unique
thinker recently (200 years after his death).
Add-on Principle
To authorize their own theory, people add-on some new
features to attack weak-points in fore-going theories.
Nakamoto observed this principle thorough his careful
study of Buddhism scriptures and Confucian classics.
It is a useful tool for bibliographical study of human
discourses.
It is also applicable when we look into various
theories/methods in software engineering.
3 Characteristics
of Human Discourses
Trends of the time
Ethnic taste
Style of representation
Nakamoto found these 3 characteristics in
his study in history of oriental religion or
philosophical discourses.
It will be also useful when we look into
software engineering theories or methods.
Taste of Discourse
Nakamoto’s Observation:
Buddhism has a taste of magic, Confucianism has taste of
rhetoric, and Japanese Shinto has a taste of simplicity
My Observation:
Structured method has a flavor of abstract art, OO has a
taste of poetical metaphor, and formal people prefer
beauty of mathematical notation.
It is Just a matter of taste. No strong relationship to the
contents of discourses.
From Thinking to Practice
Nakamoto died very young. His dying message in
his last book “Okina-no-Fumi” was as follows:
- Tao (the Way) is the way of sincere
practice, that's all.
This message overrides Sorai. There is no sacred
king. It is important to pursue your own way of
sincere practice.
Thank you!