The Last Lecture

I recently finished reading Randy Pausch's book the last lecture and then saw his youtube video

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon computer science professor died of pancreatic cancer. He wrote this book
when doctors said he had 3-6 months of good health. I added to the list my friend Satya had put together.



Notable items from the book
*****************************

What is your childhood dream?
If you can dream it, you can do it.
When there is an elephant in the room introduce it.
Brickwalls are there for a reason
Seek: open the dictionary, open the encyclopedia, open your mind
Never make a decision until you have to
More of a dreamer as opposed to precocious
Painiting the bedroom walls
Formula for the roots of a quadratic equation
Head fake: how our "actions" fake our "goals"
Kirk wrote back "I don't believe in the no win scenario"
Pouring soda on a car, drive around with dings, its just a car
The father that never announced his "Bronze star for valor"
Dream big
Value of education is to teach how to judge yourself
Go and complete your PhD and be a professor
Caption kirk - may not have be the smartest person on the ship but was a great leader
If you're doing anything pioneering people will shoot arrows at your back
What is your professional legacy?
Best advice to women about men, just ignore everything they say, focus on everything they do



Accomplishments
****************
Wrote on virtual reality in the world book
Sabbatical at Disney Imgineering and programmed some of its Virtual
Reality attractions like the "Alladin"
Alice: A VR programming toolkit/system for children

Time management
*****************
Have a plan
Manage time like money
are you spending on right things
delegate
take time out
I don't want to play with toys, I just want to make them

Principles
***********
Earnest is better than hip
make deals for untenable disagreements
don't complain just work hard
Treat the disease and not the symptom
Don't obsess what people think
Find things what you have in common
Look for the best in every one
watch what they do and not what they say
If at first you don't succeed
whether you think you can or can't you are right
Be the first penguin and risk your first dive into unchartered waters
When was the last time you worked late into a Friday night
be prepared to deny destiny its due
How to earn 100000 dollars from 10 dollars: Customer Empathy
Never give up
Ask
Give people enough time they will impress you
Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you want
When you screw it up and no one bothers to tell you are doing wrong (they have given up)
Field work, to make something that affects people lives get out there and see it
Gold is at the bottom of the crap barrels
Apologize when you screw up
Lead your life the right way, karma will take care of it



In summary, he teaches about priorites in life and Keeping them Straight, Even at the End.


/dd

Software Quality Assurance

I was invited to University of North Florida(UNF) as a guest speaker to discuss SQA. Wonderful crowd, stimulating discussion.
I believe in a very simple SQA definition.
"The function of software quality that assures that the standards, processes, and procedures are appropriate for the project and are correctly implemented"

Sound simple, Its not.

I have seen companies struggle becuase they look at the SQA as a "testing" exercise, not a preventative function. I feel that attaching quality to software at the END of the life cycle wastes a lot of time and energy when defect prevention activities can take place when quality is a point of focus throughout the life cycle.

Most of the QA jobs are listed as testers, and It only addresses very small part of software quality space.

Lastly, This process should be implemented to help the business not for the sake of it.

The model introduced by Robert Grady at HP called "FURPS+" is a great way to represent and measure software quality attributes. Google it.

Also, Microsoft's Visual Studio Team Systems provides very scalable SDLC platform to implement standardization and achieve quality control and assuarance.

/dd

I always thought I won't be one of those bloggers that has world of opinions that nobody cares. So I have always been a private blogger, even before there were blogs. I have been asked to share these thoughts now by many at work and friends. So I finally breakdown and let the world in on this small island.

This is my first blog.

Deepak