History and Future of Programing Languages

Greetings from the Canberra branch of the Australian Computer Society where Dr Jan Newmarch, from Box Hill Institute, is speaking on "The history and future of programing languages". He sees there will be a division into complex (Java, Scala)and simple (Go, Rust) languages in the future.

Dr Newmarch prefers the simple languages, provided they easily support libraries from other languages. He pointed out the usefulness of reflection, where a program can examine and modify itself.

Dr Newmarch described object-orientated imperative languages as mainstream, with some functional techniques being introduced. He also described the explosion of specialist languages, such as R and frameworks which are almost languages, such as Hadoop.

At question time Dr Newmarch  as asked about Australian developed programming languages. I suggested "Blue", which he explained was a teaching language from University of Sydney. 

While in Canberra, Dr Newmarch has been introducing the Australian Government to the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry PI is a recent product of the "Cambridge Phenomenon".

ps:  Dr Richard P. Gabriel and Dr Guy Steele reprised their presentation "50 in 50: 50 Programming Languages in 50 Years" in Canberra in 2010.

Disruptive Technologies and Change

Greetings from the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra, where Dr Rod Dilnutt is speaking on "Disruptive Technologies and Change" to members of the Australian Computer Society.

Disruptive Technologies and Change Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) are delivering order of magnitude improvements at significantly reduced cost. The ability to create, capture, communicate and process digital information is increasing at exponential rates. By the end of 2013, the 'digital universe' of all digital data created will reach nearly 50 percent more than 2012 volumes and almost a quadrupling of 2010 volumes (IDC 2013). Consequently, deployment of these technologies is causing significant economic, business and social change. In turn, these technological advances, driven by the economic imperative to improve productivity are dramatically changing business practices. This is not necessarily a new phenomenon however, the sheer number, scale and rapidity of these advances is challenging fundamental assumptions we make about the way we live, work and play. The term ‘Disruptive Technology’ has been coined to describe these phenomena and include amongst others: Cloud Computing; Mobile Platforms; The Internet of Things; Big Data and 3D Printing. These advances bring significant benefits however; these changes can also bring about undesirable consequences as workforces shrink or are displaced and as work activities are redesigned, relocated or eliminated. This study explores the impact these advances will have on individuals, communities and societies in the business context. Its aim is to provide leaders with insights into how to best manage the transition into a ‘post-disruption’ environment.

Assess a New IT Environment

Greetings from the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra, where Wendy Elford is talking on "Stories count: User experience captured in real-time to assess a new IT environment". Her PHD thesis was "Emerging issues in ergonomics: a methodological framework for foresight and sensemaking" (University of Canberra, 2011). This cites "The Network Centric Warrior:The Human Dimension of Network Centric Warfare" by Warne and others at DSTO (2004). She is also the author of "Using narrative in ergonomics research and practice" (ergonomics, 10, 12).

As far as I could work out from the presentation,  Dr. Elford conducts online surveys in the workplace. These are much like those I have experienced as a student and which are routinely used  to assess attitudes to courses. However, such surveys are not in "real time" or even near real time as Dr. Elford claims. It is not feasible to survey people frequently: as a student I get annoyed if I was surveyed more than every few months.

For near real time information something other that surveys are needed. Educators use analytical tools to carry out an analysis of data automatically recorded by the system, without the user having to fill in a survey and to provide information in day, hours or minutes, not months or weeks. In the case of students it is no good waiting until they fail courses to discover something is wrong. A similar approach could be used with employees, with computer and building information systems being used to asses how satisfied and productive staff are, before a problem gets out of hand.

Dr. Elford also mentioned co-working spaces, where small businesses can rent a seat in a shared office. A new co-working space, The Studio, one opened in the Canberra suburb of O'Connor recently). Dr. Elford seemed to be suggesting these made for a happier workforce.

Enterprise Mobility Strategy

Greetings from the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra where Joseph Sweeney from IBRS is speaking on "Creating a Sustainable Enterprise Mobility Strategy". There is a IBRS "Creating a Sustainable Mobility Strategy Whitepaper" an video available.

Joseph explained his first computer was a Dulmont Magnum 1970s laptop. He explained that to replicate the power of the mobile phone he has today using the Dulmont's 870's technology would require a computer which would cover much of eastern Australia. Mobile phones are powerful and have wireless data, but organisations have difficulty exploiting this. Joseph argued that mobility strategies fall in a gap between small and large IT projects and then go wrong.

However, he did not explain what an "Enterprise Mobility Strategy" was. I assume it is related to "Enterprise mobility management" and it is to do with replacing desktop and laptop computers with mobile phones and tablet computers. However, as Joseph points out that the mobility strategy needs to be connected to the organisation goals. It seems to me that on its own "mobility" is not much use: the organisation has to have something which it doesn't or wants o do, which could be done better mobile.

One example which Joseph gave was gas workers who had to drive an hour back to base to pick up details of their next job. It seemed odd to me that such workers would not already have a two way radio for receiving jobs, while on the road. He pointed out there were some difficulties for using standard mobile phones in this situation, such as worrying about the risk of sparks from the phone lighting gas or workers being overcome by gas a not noticed missing for hours. However, there are intrinsically safe phones with lone workers/man-down alarms. The intrinsically safe devices have been designed so they don't create sparks. A "lone worker" device will sound an alarm if the worker does not move for an extended period and may be incapacitated. An example is the  SONIM XP3340 Phone.

ICT Sourcing Trends

Greetings from the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra, where the ACS is holding its Branch Forum on "ICT Sourcing Trends" with Debbie McLaughlin, Partner, ITNewcom and Alan Hansell, IBRS Pty Ltd.

ITNewcom have been surveying IT spending in large organisations in Australia for the last 13 years. Their latest study found three themes, which Debbie commented would not be a surprise to IT professionals: organisation re taking advantage of disruptive technologies, who is doing the buying is changing changing and new suppliers are emerging. Organisations are intending to invest in Software as a Service (SaaS), Mobile platforms in the next two years. SaaS is being used for human resources and similar applications.

There are now seven large Indian providers in the Australian market, as well as Amazon and Google providing services. 

Debbie commented that large Australian organisations have difficulty buying from small start-up IT companies due to the risk of them going out of business. However, I suggest this is unavoidable: if you want competitive advantage, then you have to take a risk. One way to lessen the risk is to use open source, so that if one small company goes broke, you can get another to support it.

The trend is for IT purchasing to take place outside the IT department. There is a slight trend to more outsourcing in the private sector. Public sector has less outsourcing of applications, but significant outsourcing of telecommunications. The private sector outsources 60% of software development, mostly to India. The customer satisfaction with Indian suppliers is increasing. About 30% of public sector organisations have sent part of their software development offshore (mostly state governments). There are obvious security constraints on government sending development outside Australia. Perhaps there is more scope for those offshore companies undertaking development in Australia.

On a visit to Si Lanka I gave a talk at Virtusa and had a tour of their outsourcing operation. They compete with India.

Alan Hansell commented that state governments are focused on new service delivery models. Also he commented that governments and banks do not like to move their data offshore. I was very surprised to Alan say that software development are growth areas. Alan commented that CIOs are increasingly relying on external advice (good for me as a consultant, but may not be good for all organisations). Another growth are is data security.

Alan pointed out that the National Computational Infrastructure at ANU is a centralised $500M facility, while state governments are decentralising. He saw this as a conundrum, however as I see it academia (and ANU in particular) has long experience at hosting successful IT operations, whereas State Governments (Queensland in particular)  have had limited success. Alan commented that the Queensland government was trying to sell CITEC, their shared services IT centre, but it would not be very attractive to the commercial sector.

Alan pointed out that SaaS is not flexible: customers must use the service as-is, without customisation. Also the customer is locked to the provider. As commented earlier, open source software can reduce the lock-in.

Alan warned of less IT work in Canberra, and 20% drop in contracting rates. Also he suggested there would be fewer computer science students.

Alan suggested areas to be in demand are:  .Net development, test analysis, security, Business Intelligence and Data Analytics. Perhaps universities should offer more courses in these fields.

Big Scary Complex Open Data

Greetings from the CSIRO Discovery Centre, where Dr Markus Buchhorn is speaking on "Big Data: Big Scary Complex and Open Data". Dr Buchhorn mentioned "The Internet of Things", wearable devices and MOOCs (but was a little sceptical of MOOCs). The "National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources" (NeCTAR) at the Australian National Data Service was also mentioned. Dr Buchhorn related this back to government, business and even personal computing, with "cloud computing". Organisations and even individuals can use the same tools and techniques as big data users. But big data scientific users, with the Square Kilometre Array Telescope and the like, will require their own dedicated facilities. Also security and legal/privacy restrictions may require data to be stored at a particular locations. Examples of uses for big data range from predicting climate change to selling beer to fathers while they are in the supermarket for nappies.

  Also there is an "Australian Public Service Big Data Strategy" and a "APS Better Practice Guide for Big Data".

Branch Forum: BIG DATA - Big Scary Complex and Open Data

Big data is a broad concept that means different things to different people.

This talk will look at the perspectives around “big” data from researchers and educators and government agencies. This is a world where petabytes are not uncommon, where outcomes can change not just some people’s lives but the future of humanity and our planet – and some less edifying outcomes. It will also discuss the issues around “openness” and access to data; when should it be more widely available, under what rules, to whom, and how can we achieve that. 

To support these kinds of activities is not just a political/social discussion, challenging enough, but also a technical one, requiring appropriate infrastructure and skills to collect, manage, analyse and share the data/results. All of this in a world with continually new market offerings, new technologies, shrinking budgets, higher expectations, and greater competition.

Biography:

Dr Markus Buchhorn

Programme Manager with several national and international research infrastructure projects

Dr Buchhorn is a former astrophysicist, a former geek, a former University IT director, a former company director providing technology services to universities, and now consults widely on ICT enablement and enhancement of research, education and societal services.

Defence IT Strategist Enterprise Architecture in Complex Changing Organisations

Greetings from the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra, where Christopher Rodrigues Macias, Defence IT Strategist, is speaking on "Enterprise Architecture in Complex Changing Organisations". The is of great interest as I am teaching the ACS Virtual College course in Business Analysis.

In a refreshing change from IT presentations, Christopher had no slides, quipping that "Power corrupts and Powerpoint corrupts absolutely". He contrasted TOGAF with Zachman Framework and derived approaches (which come out of the COBOL era). He criticised the Zachman has breaking the architecture down into too small constituent parts (reminds me of  J.R.R. Tolkien's 'He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.'). Christopher asserted that the people doing the analysis for systems are usually two organisation levels below that at which the real problem is discussed. The problem then is to be able to have a discussion about high level business problems, without delving down into the technical details of solutions.

Christopher used the analogy of defence procurement, where you need to know why you are buying a system (the intent), rather than just what. This brought back memoires of nine years working in IT at the Defence Department, working out what was needed (including for joint amphibious operations)

As Christopher pointed out standard modules can be used for standard functions in the business, such as finance. But the core business of the organisation needs to be custom designed. Continuing the defence analogy, the ADF is still working out how to use the new LHD ships. One indication of this is the numerous books on amphibious operations at ANU and ANU libraries. ;-)

One of the audience asked where to get good enterprise architects. My suggestion was to train them: the Australian Computer Society offers a postgraduate course in Enterprise Architecture.