Fourth Generation software

Back in the Saddle Again — Putting the SME into the UI Which Equals UX

“Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.”  — Statement by Henry Ford in “My Life and Work”, by Henry Ford, in collaboration with Samuel Crowther, 1922, page 72

The Henry Ford quote, which he made half-jokingly to his sales staff in 1909, is relevant to this discussion because the information sector has developed along the lines of the auto and many other industries.  The statement was only half-joking because Ford’s cars could be had in three colors.  But in 1909 Henry Ford had found a massive market niche that would allow him to sell inexpensive cars to the masses.  His competition wasn’t so much as other auto manufacturers, many of whom catered to the whims of the rich and more affluent members of society, but against the main means of individualized transportation at the time–the horse and buggy.  The color was not so much important to this market as was the need for simplicity and utility.

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The Future — Data Focus vs. “Tools” Focus

The title in this case is from the Leonard Cohen song.

Over the last few months I’ve come across this issue quite a bit and it goes to the heart of where software technology is leading us.  The basic question that underlies this issue can be boiled down into the issue of whether software should be thought of as a set of “tools” or an overarching solution that can handle data in a way that the organization requires.  It is a fundamental question because what we call Big Data–despite all of the hoopla–is really a relative term that changes with hardware, storage, and software scalability.  What was Big Data in 1997 is not Big Data in 2016, and will not be Big Data in 2030.

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New Directions — Fourth Generation apps, Agile, and the New Paradigm

The world is moving forward and Moore’s Law is accelerating in interesting ways on the technology side, which opens new opportunities, especially in software.  In the past I have spoken of the flexibility of Fourth Generation software, that is, software that doesn’t rely on structured hardcoding, but instead, is focused on the data to deliver information to the user in more interesting and essential ways.  I work in this area for my day job, and so using such technology has tipped over more than a few rice bowls.

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Do You Believe in Magic? — Big Data, Buzz Phrases, and Keeping Feet Planted Firmly on the Ground

My alternative title for this post was “Money for Nothing,” which is along the same lines.  I have been engaged in discussions regarding Big Data, which has become a bit of a buzz phrase of late in both business and government.  Under the current drive to maximize the value of existing data, every data source, stream, lake, and repository (and the list goes on) has been subsumed by this concept.  So, at the risk of being a killjoy, let me point out that not all large collections of data is “Big Data.”  Furthermore, once a category of data gets tagged as Big Data, the further one seems to depart from the world of reality in determining how to approach and use the data.  So for of you who find yourself in this situation, let’s take a collective deep breath and engage our critical thinking skills.

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The Water is Wide — Data Streams and Data Reservoirs

I’ve had a lot of opportunities lately, in a practical way, to focus on data quality and approaches to data.  There is some criticism in our industry about using metaphors to describe concepts in computing.

Like any form of literature, however, there are good and bad metaphors.  Opposing them in general, I think, is contrarian posing.  Metaphors, after all, often allow us to discover insights into an otherwise opaque process, clarifying in our mind’s eye what is being observed through the process of deriving similarities to something more familiar.  Strong metaphors allow us to identify analogues among the phenomena being observed, providing a ready path to establishing a hypothesis.  Having served this purpose, we can test that hypothesis to see if the metaphor serves our purposes in contributing to understanding.

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Super Doodle Dandy (Software) — Decorator Crabs and Wirth’s Law

decorator-crab[1]

The song (absent the “software” part) in the title is borrowed from the soundtrack of the movie, The Incredible Mr. Limpet.  Made in the day before Pixar and other recent animation technologies, it remains a largely unappreciated classic; combining photography and animation in a time of more limited tools, but with Don Knotts creating another unforgettable character beyond Barney Fife.  Somewhat related to what I am about to write, Mr. Limpet taught the creatures of the sea new ways of doing things, helping them overcome their mistaken assumptions about the world.

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