Comments on Software Development Career Track Paper

Last Updated On 26th January 2013

Given below are comments I received from Dr. Mark Tarver for my academic paper, "Improve the Practice of Software Development in India by Having a Software Development Career Track in Indian CS & IT Academia" whose preprint version is available on arxiv.org hosted by Cornell University, USA: Abstract; Pdf.

---

March 23rd, 2012
Dr. Mark Tarver's Comments on an earlier version of the paper, Abstract, PDF

Dr. Mark Tarver of lambdassociates.org, who is also a former UK CS academic, was kind enough to share his valuable comments on the above paper. He further kindly permitted me to post his comments (and my response) suitably edited for a blog post, here. As I do not have express permission to share his comments using CC-BY license, his comments are excluded from the general CC-BY license applied to this blog post/page.

Let me take this opportunity to thank Dr. Tarver for his very frank and very well expressed views in his articles on CS academia. These articles and some of Prof. Bjarne Stroustrup's articles and a few private mail exchanges that an internationally renowned software development practitioner and CS academic kindly had with me, gave me the courage to challenge Indian CS/IT academic mind-set regarding software development practice.

Of course, my views may have flaws. Prof. Stroustrup and Dr. Tarver may disagree with part or all of my views. But, in my considered opinion, the situation is so dire in Indian CS/IT academia, in general, that it has almost become dysfunctional! There may be some exceptions, of course, but, in general, in my considered opinion, CS/IT students are getting a very raw deal. CS/IT academia in other countries may also be partly dysfunctional. We urgently need discussion followed by concerted attempts of corrective action to improve life for CS/IT students & employers.

Dr. Mark Tarver (MT) wrote: I read your paper with interest; and I agree with the thrust of what you say.

Ravi S. Iyer (RI) responded: That is vital input for me. Thanks again.

MT: Two points to consider.

1. Industry is rarely innovative and trend-setting in terms of practice and computer-language development. Practices linger on in industry due to the costs of adoption long after they are left behind by best academic practice.

RI: I tend to agree with your views here, though I do not have wide spread exposure to world wide academia to comment on "best academic practice".

MT: Lisp, Prolog, ML were all developed at university. It was industry, not academia, that kept Cobol alive for a long time.

RI: Industry marches to the beat of a different drummer, the money making drummer :). I agree.

MT: Hence placing the criteria for academic promotion in the hands of commerce is likely to stultify innovation in software practice.

RI: Very interesting point. In India, software practice in academia is quite poor. While we do have an Open Source community in India, as far as I know, it is nowhere near the thriving Open Source community that say, the US, has. So, I felt that industry should get involved in the "peer review" in the initial years.

Over time, if Indian CS/IT academia itself acquires the capability to "peer review" software development contributions, then industry can be dropped from the "peer review" process. But, as of now, in India, industry is the only community, I think, that can deliver on software development "peer review" for the huge numbers of students that India has.

MT: I would say it needs to be put in the hands of the open source community.

RI: I think, this would be a wonderful option for countries like the US and UK. And, if it proves itself as a sustainable and successful process, then other countries like India can follow their lead.

MT: 2. There is a third class of teacher who is neither productive in terms of writing (commercially significant) code or in writing papers but who is simply an excellent teacher. This sort of person is totally under-served at the moment.

RI: I entirely agree. In fact, I have at first hand seen how teaching excellence is neglected. You may want to read my blog post, CS & IT Academia: Is Teaching Excellence Important?, where I conclude by writing, "I think I am an old school guy who feels that the FIRST and FOREMOST DUTY of a TEACHER is to TEACH and TEACH WELL."