My 'Improve the Practice of Software Development ...' paper is referenced in 2015 Management PhD Thesis on MCA students career planning, and in a 2012 Software Engineering literature survey paper

My paper mentioned in the title of the post is: "Improve the Practice of Software Development in India by having a Software Development Career Track in Indian CS & IT Academia" (by Ravi S. Iyer), December 2012.
Abstract: https://arxiv.org/abs/1202.1715 , PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1715 .

"MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE (ACADEMIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE ASPECT) IN CAREER PLANNING OF STUDENTS DURING 2007-2013 WITH REFERENCE TO SELECTED MCA INSTITUTES IN PUNE REGION” is a thesis submitted To Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune (Maharashtra, India) for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) In Management by Mr. Ashutosh Madhukar Kulkarni under the Guidance of Dr. Shriniwas S. Kulkarni in April 2015
Ref: https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/86727/1/01_title.pdf.

The thesis contents can be viewed from here: http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in:8080/jspui/handle/10603/86727.

In Section "1.7 Research Questions" of "Chapter 1: Introduction " on page 6, http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/10603/86727/6/06_chapter%201.pdf, it states: "A large number of IT graduates are available every year from different universities, but NASSCOM claims that very few IT graduates are employable, in addition, Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), New Delhi released a report which supports this view expressed by NASSCOM."

In the same section, it states that the researcher has identified a set of research questions. Among those research questions are:

"c) What are the industry needs/expectations from aspiring MCA candidates?
d) Are these needs/expectations known to the management of institute?
e) Is there any gap between industry and academia?
f) If the gap exists, how to bridge the gap?"

In section "2.2 Literature Review" of "Chapter 2: Review of Literature" on page 13, http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/10603/86727/7/07_chapter%202.pdf, it states:
"Ravi S. Iyer proposes that if the practice oriented software development career track, is introduced in UGC & AICTE regulations for appointment and promotion of Indian CS & IT academics then, a healthy mix of both research oriented as well as software development oriented Indian Computer Science & Information Technology academics will solve the problem.[30]"

https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/86727/14/14_references.pdf gives the references. It has the following reference for my pre-print (not yet published in peer-reviewed publication) paper: '[30] Ravi S. Iyer, “Improve the Practice of Software Development in India by having a Software Development Career Track in Indian CS & IT Academia”, December 2012'.

My above mentioned paper has also been referenced in a paper: "A literature review and classification of selected software engineering researches" by Ahmed Saleem Abbas, W. Jeberson, V.V. Klinsega of SHIATS, University, Department of Computer Science & Information Technology, India, published in International Journal of Engineering and Technology Volume 2 No. 7, July, 2012,  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wilson_Jeberson/publication/265886949_A_Literature_Review_and_Classification_of_Selected_Software_Engineering_Researches/links/560f943e08ae48337517e1a8/A-Literature-Review-and-Classification-of-Selected-Software-Engineering-Researches.pdf.

My paper appears in the list of references as '[239] Ravi S. Iyer, "Improve the Practice of Software Development by Having a Software Development Career Track in CS & IT Academia", Software Consultant, Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, India, 2012.'

Internet search on: how to improve software development skills in Indian CS IT academia, gives my Dec. 2012 paper within top three results even now in Jan 2020

Last updated on 1st Feb. 2020

This post follows upon my recent post: Quite amazed that Internet search on: improve teaching of software development in Indian CS & IT academia, gives my Dec. 2012 paper as 1st or 2nd result even now in Jan 2020, https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2020/01/quite-amazed-that-internet-search-on.html.

The Dec. 2012 paper referenced above is:
Improve the Practice of Software Development in India by having a Software Development Career Track in Indian CS & IT Academia by Ravi S. Iyer.
Abstract: https://arxiv.org/abs/1202.1715 , PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1715 .

The word skills has become an important keyword in the context of discourse on employability of graduates in India. So I felt it is important to see where my paper stands in search results having the term skills in the search string.

The screenshots below (from incognito Chrome window to avoid bias towards my stuff) show that search on Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo search engines for term:

how to improve software development skills in Indian CS IT academia

gives my Dec. 2012 paper (pre-print and not published in peer reviewed academic publication) among the top three results!

• Google search ranking: 3rd result (two screenshots are used to show the ranking)
• Bing search ranking: 2nd result (with 1st result being another post of my Indian CS & IT academic reform blog)
• DuckDuckGo search ranking: 2nd result (with 1st result being another post of my Indian CS & IT academic reform blog)

[To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]

Like in the case of the high search ranking in previous post mentioned above, I am quite surprised and disappointed with these results too, as now in Jan. 2020, it is over 7 years since that paper was authored & updated, and put up publicly on arxiv.org.

I should also mention that in my paper I have chosen to use the term academia to refer to educational institutions in India that impart under graduate and post graduate education. The other term used for such institutions is "higher education".

Search for the term:

how to improve software development skills in Indian CS IT higher education

in Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo  ***does not*** give my paper or any post from my Indian CS & IT academic reform blog in the top ten results when I checked today (31st Jan. 2020).

Quite amazed that Internet search on: improve teaching of software development in Indian CS & IT academia, gives my Dec. 2012 paper as 1st or 2nd result even now in Jan 2020

Last updated 1st Feb. 2020

The screenshots below (from incognito Chrome window to avoid bias towards my stuff) show that search on Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo search engines for term:

improve teaching of software development in Indian CS & IT academia

gives my Dec. 2012 paper (pre-print and not published in peer reviewed academic publication) as the 1st or 2nd result!

The Dec. 2012 paper referenced above is:
Improve the Practice of Software Development in India by having a Software Development Career Track in Indian CS & IT Academia by Ravi S. Iyer.
Abstract: https://arxiv.org/abs/1202.1715 , PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1715 .

I am quite amazed as now in Jan. 2020, it is over 7 years since that paper was authored & updated, and put up publicly on arxiv.org. Yes, I would not have been surprised if the paper showed up after the first ten results or so. But this result is somewhat disappointing as it shows that others are either not contributing to ***publicly available*** literature (on Internet) on improving the poor quality of teaching of software development in Indian academia, or their contributions on it are not being highlighted by top Internet search engines.

[To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]

The next set of screenshots show results for the term:

improve teaching of software development in Indian academia

Bing and DuckDuckGo continue to highlight my paper. Google does not show it directly but refers to my associated blog table of contents and my paper title entry in that, as the seventh or so result.

Bing and DuckDuckGo highlight this paper even for the following term:

improve teaching of software development in India

But for the above term, Google does not show any of my stuff (paper or any blog post) in the first twenty or thirty results that I checked.

As I said, I am disappointed as it indicates that perhaps very few people are making ***publicly available*** literature contributions giving their ideas and suggestions to solve, what I presume continues to be, this serious problem of poor teaching of software development in Indian academia in general. There surely would be a few academic institutions in India where it is taught well. But, in general, in UGC & AICTE regulated Indian academia (vast majority of CS & IT higher education institutions in India), I presume that it continues to be taught poorly. The Google search results given below indicate that my presumption is, very unfortunately, right!

The screenshot below gives the top two Google search results for:

poor software development skills in Indian CS graduates

The top result link is: 95% engineers in India unfit for software development jobs: study, https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/95-engineers-in-india-unfit-for-software-development-jobs-study/article9652211.ece, published on 20th April 2017 (and updated on 27th Jan. 2018).

It states: "According to a study by employability assessment company Aspiring Minds, only 4.77 per cent candidates can write the correct logic for a programme — a minimum requirement for any programming job.

Over 36,000 engineering students from IT related branches of over 500 colleges took Automata — a Machine Learning based assessment of software development skills — and over 2/3 could not even write code that compiles."

The second result link is: The reason India does not have enough awesome developers, https://www.hackerearth.com/blog/talent-assessment/indian-software-developers, 21st Jan. 2019.

It states: "Of the 6,000 hours devoted to studying, only around 500 hours are actually spent on hands-on lab work. If a student is given so many books to read but not enough time to indulge in practical experience, what can he learn?"
...
"Research says, around 1.5 million engineers graduate every year in India, with 80% not even employable. Then some become teachers. Thus continues the vicious cycle!"

Decided on A4 size for paperback book and ebook having this blog's (Indian CS & IT Academic Reform) main contents

Initially, I had not paid much thought to the page size selection for the "Indian Computer Science (CS) & Information Technology (IT) Academic Reform (Past) Activism Blog Book" which will have important posts from this blog (https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/). As A5 was the size I had first used for both of my earlier self-published books (with 6in. x 9in. being used additionally later on for alternate paperback self-publishing & printing platform company), I had thought of using A5 for this book too.

As I added the first article into my book manuscript/document, which is my paper (pre-print and not published in any peer reviewed publication) on how to improve practice of software development in Indian CS & IT academia, it became apparent that A5 is a totally inappropriate size choice for this book which is essentially a technical education related book. After thinking about other possibilities, I checked out A4 page size. Here are two versions of the in-progress document PDF: A5 size: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Oezq4Fvsx0uXYv8TERmFjWEmeBfKOV7Q and A4 size: https://drive.google.com/open?id=15FDEf_ddrLYqvke8rmwW80UcHMBaYMw0. A4 PDF looks suitable and so I settled on A4 page size for the book.

I considered using A4 size for the following reasons:
1) Pothi.com which is the first self-publishing (& printing) platform I will use to self-publish the book, supports A4 page size paperback books - https://publish.pothi.com/tools/price-royalty-calculator/ shows the various page sizes supported by Pothi.com for paperback books.

2) Techie readers who would like to read a paper (hardcopy) version could just laser-print the (free download) ebook version if the ebook page size is A4. A4 paper is standard size for laser printers. [While in the software industry (1984 to 2002), I have printed umpteen A4 size documents for reading while being based in various locations in India, USA and Western Europe. Some of these documents ran into 50 to 100 pages or even more. For such documents, a bigger stapler or paper clip was needed to hold the printed document papers together - but that was available. So I presume that even today in 2020, any techie who wants to print the ebook on a laser printer, may be able to very conveniently do it, and thereby easily have a paper (hardcopy) of the book!]

Note that only the cover page (yet to be designed) will be colour - the interior will be black & white. Submitting the ebook to a black and white laser printer will print the colour cover page in greyscale (black & white) with rest of the book being black & white anyway.

3) Two columns in A4 size document would make for easier reading but I am not going to invest time in making the book two columns. Besides, I have authored so many internal documents in A4 size without multiple columns, during my industry career, and I have read countless such single column A4 documents as well. So I think single column A4 page is acceptable for this book. BTW the first book like document (other than specification docs like functional spec & design spec) that I authored was in A4 size single column, if I recall correctly. It was a GUI (Graphical User Interface) design guide for business applications done for Mastek in SEEPZ, Mumbai sometime in the mid 1990s. I used Microsoft Word at that time too to produce this book like document. 

What size of Times New Roman font - 12, 11 or 10 - should I use for main text for paperback book and ebook having this blog's (Indian CS & IT Academic Reform) main contents?

Last updated on 25th Jan. 2020

This post follows up on an earlier Facebook post, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2685157395034154 dated 11th Dec. 2019. Its contents are given below.

Should I use Times New Roman 12 or Times New Roman 11 font for main text in my next book - "Indian Computer Science (CS) & Information Technology (IT) Academic Reform (Past) Activism Blog Book"?

I have started working on my next book which essentially will include important posts from my https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/ blog and which (book) I have tentatively titled as "Indian Computer Science (CS) & Information Technology (IT) Academic Reform (Past) Activism Blog Book". I will have both ebook and paperback print versions. But I expect to print only a very, very few (2 or 3) print copies. The ebook will be the important one which I will put up on self.gutenberg.org and archive.org and which hopefully will get incorporated into global ebook libraries like worldebooklibrary.org. That should ensure some longevity for the ebook even if very few read it.

It is a very niche interest book and so very few people will want to read it. But it may be very useful to some of that very few who are into activism of the kind the book/blog covers.

The question is what font size should I use for the main text in the book (font will be Times New Roman).

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Basic_Book_Design/Font#Font_Size says, "Times Roman, look best in 11 or 12 points". Note that there are subtle differences between Times Roman and Times New Roman fonts but I think for the discussion on this post, they do not matter.

BTW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_New_Roman says, "Although no longer used by The Times, Times New Roman is still very common in book and general printing.[3] It has become one of the most popular and influential typefaces in history and a standard typeface on desktop computers.[4][5]"
[Wiki Refs:
3: Dreyfus, John (1973). "The Evolution of Times New Roman". The Penrose Annual. 66: 165–174.
4: Farey, Dave (2014). "A Life and Times, Part 1". Ultrabold (16): 16–25.
5: Farey, Dave (2014). "A Life and Times, Part 2". Ultrabold (15): 3–13.]

For most of my documents work in software industry, right from around 1985, I have used Times New Roman as my standard font, and I think I typically used 12 as the font size.

For my previous books, I wanted to err on the side of large font for the main text and so used Times New Roman 12.

One of the issues with Times New Roman 12 is that the print version becomes more expensive as it runs into more pages. The ebook version will also run into more pages but no additional expense comes into play as it will be free download. But the higher number of pages may make it more intimidating for readers.

This book is a technical one. So I think Times New Roman 11 will be acceptable. That will reduce the number of pages in the book (both ebook and paperback).

So I am seriously considering using Times New Roman 11 instead of Times New Roman 12 for the main text in this book. I wanted to check with readers whether they have any suggestions on this, and so this post. Thanks.
--------

A correspondent wrote over email (and was OK with sharing):
Dear Ravi - Good to know you are working on your next book!
Regarding the font size, there is hardly any size difference between Times New Roman 11 and 12. However, the 12 appears little bolder (not fully bold) than 11. So, book purpose I think 11 would be better, especially for the print book. For the ebook, it shouldn't make much difference because these days pretty much all reading tools have zoom feature built into it. So a reader can zoom in, if he/she finds the font size 11 to be harder to read.
This is my 2 cents!
Good luck with your new book project!
----
I responded (slightly edited):
Thanks a ton --name-snipped-- for your valuable view on the font size and your encouragement for the book.
-----
=== end Facebook post contents ==============

23rd Jan. 2020:

Another suggestion I received which I have not mentioned above, was to consider size 10 font also. Further suggestion was to print test page(s) with same contents in different candidate fonts and then see what is appropriate for my needs.

Later I read that some technical papers are done in size 10 font.  http://marathon.csee.usf.edu/~sarkar/IEEEformat.html says that the standard IEEE CS-Press format specifies: "Normal text is to be single-spaced in 10-point Times or Times Roman (or similar font), with 12-point interline spacing, in the two-column format."

I had decided on Times New Roman as my font as I wanted to play safe and go with a tried-and-tested font for this book. So the candidate fonts were sizes 12, 11 and 10 Times New Roman.

I had got caught up in some other matters since the first half of December when the above Facebook post was put up, and so was able to get around to do the test printing only yesterday.

I prepared three versions of a two A5 page Word document with same content (excluding font size message), with the above mentioned three font sizes (Times New Roman 12, 11 and 10). I then used Print To PDF to print these two A5 pages of each document on an A4 sheet. I took care to ensure that there was no zoom up or down selection in the printing dialog and so I presume that the actual size of the text with the selected font got printed in the 3 PDF files of 1 A4 size page.

Yesterday I printed these three PDF files using a Puttaparthi laser printer shop's services.

Given below are pics I took of these pages using my low cost LYF phone. The first two pics below show part-page comparison of size 12 with size 11, and of size 11 with size 10. The third and fourth pic shows part-page comparison of size 12, 11 and 10 fonts in the same pic with 6 cms height of each part and 9 cms height of each part.

[To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]

Pics below show the full 2 A5 sized pages on single A4 page for font size 12, 11 and 10. The pages look whiter than in the pics above but the pages are the same. The whiter look is due to the pics below being taken in rather bright sunlight whereas the above pics were taken indoors (under tubelights).

Looking at the pages directly (not above pics) shows that Times New Roman Font size 10 is also quite comfortably readable. I think readers from technical field of Computer Science and Information Technology will find it comfortably readable.

However, I intend to send the printed (paperback) book copy to the (Indian) Union Minister of Human Resource Development (who is overall incharge of UGC and AICTE, the main higher education regulatory authorities for Computer Science and Information Technology fields in India), (Indian) Union Minister for Information Technology and perhaps the (Indian) Prime Minister too. I think I may also send it to few state chief ministers (Andhra Pradesh, my current state, and Maharashtra, my former state). I don't know whether the ministers or his/her key support staff will give it a look or not. But they may! In the covering letter, I will point out a few important articles which can be understood by non-technical readers too, and request him/her/them to read it. For such non-technical readers, I think font size 10 would seem to be unusually small, as the letters and requests they get from citizens may be in larger font size. Note that I will use font size 12 for my covering letter, which is the standard font size I use for such letters. So I think font size 11 is a good compromise choice. It should be OK for such non-technical readers and since it is one size smaller than 12, it will slightly reduce the number of pages in the book.
=============================================

25th Jan. 2020

Line Spacing

I use Microsoft Word as my document creator/editor. The line spacing that I use in it is controlled by "Line spacing:" field in Paragraph->Indents & Spacing tab. The value it shows in my document is: Multiple At 1.15. https://medium.com/@mattsamberg/line-spacing-explained-9aecda41f48d explains "In Word, Times New Roman actually has about 2 points of extra white space built in. So, single spacing for a 12-point font is actually 14 points per line, and double spacing is 28 points per line."

The document also states, "When you go into the Paragraph formatting panel in Word, there are six settings: Single, 1.5 lines, Double, At least, Exactly, and Multiple. Single, 1.5 lines, Double, and Multiple are all straightforward: the line spacing is 14 points, 21 points, 28 points, or 14x points per line."

The Multiple At 1.15 spacing option that my document has currently for the basic text style (Normal) makes the line spacing for Times New Roman 12 font, as per my understanding of above document, 14 * 1.15 = 16.1 points!

So that perhaps means it is Times New Roman 12 point on 16 point interline spacing.

This Multiple At 1.15 spacing selection is the default line spacing for Microsoft Word installation on my PC. [I use an old copy of Microsoft Word 2007 which I am comfortable with and has served my basic needs well.]

I have decided to use Times New Roman 11 as my Normal style (main text font) for the book with the default Multiple At 1.15 line spacing of Word. I presume that Times New Roman 11 would also be having some points extra line space built-in (in the font) say 1.8 points extra space. Multiple line spacing at 1.15 is: 11 * 1.15 = 12.65. So it would be 11 point Times New Roman with interline spacing of around 14.5 points.

Even if we remove the built-in space, we get interline spacing of 12.65. I have given below a screenshot of Word showing the 1.15 line spacing selection.

To conclude, 11 on 12.65 Times New Roman font (without counting any built-in line spacing in the font) is what I will be using in the book for the main text in the book (both paperback and ebook versions).