RiSE’s Interviews: Episode 6 – Software Reuse with Dr. John D. McGregor

After the 4th Workshop to Introduce Reuse in Enterprises (WIRE), in Recife. An interview was performed with John D. McGregor an associate professor of computer science at Clemson University, a founding partner of Luminary Software, and a Visiting Scientist at Software Engineering Institute (SEI).

This interview is available here.

I would like to thank McGregor for accepted the podcast invitation, and inform that was a very nice experience and a pleasure, interview a person with this importance for the research community.

1) Talk a little bit about your career, how do you initiated, your graduation and their relationship with industry. I would like to know about your experiences and the work at the university and industry, your challenges as a reuse practitioner and after in the industry and how as the road to be there because it is a incredible career.

2) You worked a lot with software architecture and software product lines. For you, what is the importance of the industry in the field?

3) In the software product line area, we can see the community increasing. In the last year, during SPLC, we had more than 200 participants and too many from the industry. In your opinion what are the ingredients for this success in this conference?

4) For you, is there difference between domain engineering and software product lines?

5) You had/have many projects with the industry. What are the main problems to introduce software product lines in companies? What are the risks and how to avoid them? Finally, how to define a road to start it in companies?

6) Some companies believe that software product lines can be a good approach to obtain benefits related to time-to-market cost reduction, etc. However, we do not have many specific models to show the risks, the benefits, economic models etc. So, how to show for companies that a software product lines approach can be good?

7) You had many industrial projects in the software product lines area. For you, what were the strong, weak points and main lessons learned?

8) How to introduce software product lines in a software factory working with different domains?

9) We can see in the reuse field, ideas like: modules, objects, components, software product lines, and others ones such as models, services, DSLs. For you what can be the next one?

10) For you what is the state of the practice in the area and the directions for future research?

* This interview was performed by Paulo Anselmo from RiSE Labs.

CACM - Donald Knuth Interview

Communications of the ACM (CACM) in July and August's editions published a very good interview with Donald Knuth. The two papers The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth and Donald Knuth: A Life's Work Interrupted are very interesting.

Don Knuth is an Emeritus Professor at Stanford University and won several awards such as Turing Award (1974) and John von Neumann Medal (1995). He is most known by being the creator of the TeX and author of the seminal The Art of Programming book series.

In his interview, Don comments curious moment in his life such as his path from physics, mathematics until arrive in computer science; his first program in 1950s and its lessons; his disappointment as a teacher; his mentor; his first text written in a motel; and his Ph.D. thesis research taken in one hour ("I felt a little guilty that I had solved my Ph.D. problem in one hour, so I dressed it up with a few other chapters of stuff").

Another good point is when he said: "if you ask me what makes me most happy, number on would be somebody saying: I learned something from you. Number two would be somebody saying: I used your software".

RiSE’s Interviews: Episode 5 – Software Reuse with Dr. Jan Bosch

During the 3rd Workshop to Introduce Reuse in Enterprises (WIRE), I performed an interview with Jan Bosch, an outstanding researcher working in the software architecture and software product lines area. Nowadays, Jan is a VP from Intuit. You can listen it here.

I would like to thank Jan for the interview and patience because of the noise at the hotel during this podcast. Thus, I will publish the questions here in order to facilitate it.

1 - You started you career as a software engineering professor in the Netherlands and after that you moved to Nokia Research Center and nowadays you are working at Intuit in the U.S. I would like to know about these experiences and the work at the university and industry, your challenges as a professor and after that in the industry as a VP and how as the road to be there because it is an incredible career.

2 - You worked a lot with software architecture and software product lines. For you, what is the importance of the industry in the field?

3 - In the software product line area, we can see the community increasing. In the last year, during SPLC, we had more than 200 participants and too many from the industry. In your opinion what are the ingredients for this success in this conference?

4 - For you, is there difference between domain engineering and software product lines?

5 - You had/have many projects with the industry. What are the main problems to introduce software product lines in companies?
What are the risks and how to avoid them? Finally, how to define a road to start it in companies?

6 - Some companies believe that software product lines can be a good approach to obtain benefits related to time-to-market cost reduction, etc. However, we do not have many specific models to show the risks, the benefits, economic models etc. So, how to show for companies that a software product lines approach can be good?

7 - You had many industrial projects in the software product lines area. For you, what were the strong, weak points and main lessons learned?

8 - How to introduce software product lines in a software factory working with different domains?

9 - We can see in the reuse field, ideas like: modules, objects, components, software product lines, and others ones such as models, services, DSLs. For you what can be the next one?

10 - For you what is the state of the practice in the area and the directions for future research?

RiSE’s Interviews: Episode 4 – Software Reuse with Dr. Charles Krueger

It is one more interview performed during the RiSE Summer School on Software Reuse (RiSS). In the fourth one, Charles Krueger, CEO and foun der from BigLever Software and one of the most important researchers working Software Product Lines (SPL), answered 10 questions about software reuse and SPL. Watch the interview here. One more time, Thanks for Anderson Correia, Manager from TV C.E.S.A.R.

RiSE’s Interviews: Episode 3 – Software Reuse with Dr. Ivica Crnkovic

It is one more interview performed during the RiSE Summer School on Software Reuse (RiSS). In the second one, Ivica Crnkovic, one of the most important researchers working with Component-Based Developmet (CBD), from Mälardalen University, Sweden, answered 10 questions about software reuse and CBD. Watch the interview here. One more time, Thanks for Anderson Correia, Manager from TV C.E.S.A.R.

RiSE’s Interviews: Episode 2 – Software Reuse with Dr. Dirk Muthig

It is one more interview performed during the RiSE Summer School on Software Reuse (RiSS). In the second one, Dirk Muthig, one of the most important researcher/practitioner working with Software Product Lines (SPL), from Fraunhofer Institute, Germany, answered 10 questions about software reuse and SPL. Watch the interview here. One more time, Thanks for Anderson Correia, Manager from TV C.E.S.A.R.

RiSE’s Interviews: Episode 1 – Software Reuse with Dr. Ruben Prieto-Diaz

During the RiSE Summer School on Software Reuse (RiSS), the RiSE’s members had the opportunity to perform some interview with the keynote speakers at C.E.S.A.R. In the first one, Ruben Prieto- Diaz, the creator of facets ideas in the search and retrieval area of software componentes, from James Madison University answered 10 questions about software reuse. Watch the interview here. Thanks for Anderson Correia, Manager from TV C.E.S.A.R.

RiSE’s Podcasts: Episode 1 – Software Product Lines with Dr. David Weiss

Today, the RiSE starts a new source of information in the software reuse area: PodCasts with interviews involving the main practitioners/researchers working with software reuse. It was inspired in the software engineering radio and a talk with Dr. Uira kulesza new professor at C.E.S.A.R EDU.

To begin, our first guest is Dr. David Weiss, research director at Avaya Labs, and our partner. Dr. David Weiss is a researcher and practitioner in the area working with Software Product Lines. In this area, Dr. Weiss is the chair of the Hall of Fame, one of the most important sessions with practical efforts in reuse. In the research world, Dr. Weiss has a strong experience being creator of important advances in the process and measurement fields.

In this interview, Liana Barachisio, software reuse researcher at RiSE, presents ten important questions involving reuse. Listen the interview here.