Communications of the ACM (April)

91 Pages·2004·2.782 MB·English

Editorial Pointers
We all recognize how first examples of its application and utility.
impressions color potential human Also in this issue, Krishna et al. contend a critical
relationships. In real life, we tend to step in managing global software projects is to exam-
be drawn to others who exhibit ine the cross-cultural issues that may hinder progress.
proper etiquette and suitable con- Wallace and Keil explore the relationship between the
duct similar to our own. An risks related to software projects and their ultimate
encounter with someone ill-man- outcomes. With multimillion-dollar failures dominat-
nered or with bad habits typically ing track records, their findings offer valuable insight
sparks a reaction of distrust or displeasure. So, as we managers must consider before initiating a project.
invite software systems to play an increasingly inti- It may be unrealistic to expect users to apply (and
mate and autonomous role in our daily lives, is it any remember) a different password for every online account
wonder we look for these tools to display the kind of they keep, but as Ives et al. warn, the practice of reusing
etiquette rules we favor in human relationships? passwords poses a real domino threat of untold damage
A growing community of researchers, practitioners, on heretofore secure systems. Li discusses the implica-
educators, psychologists, and sociologists are exploring tions of “herding,” that is, the practice of managers fol-
the etiquette perspective, believing systems that display lowing the same IT adoption decisions rather than
proper behavior not only win user acceptance, but thinking strategically and independently.
enhance the accuracy and speed with which users de- In “The Profession of IT,” Peter Denning celebrates
velop trust and confidence in systems and software. innovation by tracing the roots of some of the industry’s
This month’s special section examines human-computer classic innovative notions and illustrating ways innova-
etiquette with intentional agents, namely, complex sys- tion can be better understood. And in “Technical
tems built with “social actors” displaying subtle rules of Opinion,” John Gerdes offers a rare look at the mecha-
decorum befitting human-like collaborators. Guest edi- nisms that support anonymous employment while
tor Christopher Miller, chief scientist at Smart addressing government reporting requirements.
Information Flow Technologies, explains the etiquette
perspective is a field in its infancy; it is the goal of this
section to bring the early research to the forefront. The
authors provide a variety of perspectives on the use and
potential of etiquette-based design, including many Editor
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COMMUNICATIONSOF THE ACMApril 2004/Vol. 47, No. 4 5
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6 April 2004/Vol. 47, No. 4 COMMUNICATIONSOF THE ACM
News Track
Political Agendas
spam activists spend hours tracking spammers and
The offshoring of IT jobs has become such a political reporting them to authorities. Others engage in
tinderbox in the U.S. that India’s outsourcing special- cyberwarfare by shutting down spammers’ Web pages
ists fear its repercussions. The chairman of a leading or putting spammers’ addresses on Web sites. Others
Indian software firm recently told the New York sue. And some are even resorting to violent threats.
Times: “The dramatic buildup of opposition A usually mild-mannered 44-year-old Silicon Val-
before the U.S. elections is disturbing,” point- ley programmer was recently arrested by the
ing out political reaction against outsourc- FBI and charged with eight violations of
ing has already culminated in almost two interstate communications for threaten-
dozen U.S. states voting to ban govern- ing to torture and shoot an employee
ment work from being contracted to of a company that spammed him
non-Americans. Moreover, the U.S. relentlessly. Experts say there are far
Senate approved a bill aimed at more cases of spam rage than ever
restricting outsourcing contracts from reported because spammers do not
two federal departments. Technology want to invite the law to scrutinize
researchers Gartner Group predict the their operations.
outsourcing reaction will continue to
Digital Doubts
escalate at least through the fall. Indian
officials hope the effect of the U.S. legis- “I thought digital was better, but appar-
lations will be minimal and that com- ently it’s not,” contends a consultant for
mon economic interests will the Philadelphia public defender’s
override political differences that office. The “digital” in question is pho-
could lead to trade protectionism. At tography, once favored by police depart-
stake: India’s IT technology and services industry ments for its cost and enhancement benefits, now
earned $12 billion in revenue in FY03, $9.5 billion of more often confounding the justice system. The
which came from exports. FY04 is projecting $15.5 Associated Press reports that digital courtroom evi-
billion in revenues with exports of $12 billion. dence is now frequently challenged, especially when
the word “enhancement” is whispered. Because digi-
Spam Rage
tal images are mere bits of data, manipulating them is
A growing number of Internet users are doing more much easier than any potential darkroom tricks with
than hitting the delete button when it comes to elimi- film. “What you can do in a darkroom is 2% of what
nating spam from their lives; they are in fact squaring Photoshop is capable of doing,” says a former head of
off against spammers in more extreme, sometimes vio- photography for State Farm Insurance. Forensic spe-
lent, ways. USA Today reports that spam rage, like cialists worry more about unwitting errors introduced
road and air rage, is an escalating trend, where many by poorly trained examiners than by intentional
ALTERED EGOS: IDENTITY THEFT IS NUMBER-ONE CONSUMER COMPLAINT
Identity theft 42%
A
BAT Consumers filed more than 516,000 complaints with the Internet auctions 15%
E Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last year, up from 404,000
O Shop-at-home/catalog sales 9%
K in 2002. For a fourth straight year, identity theft was the most
A
AS common gripe, the agency reported recently, although claims Internet services/computers 6%
M
BY involving Internet-related fraud—from bogus auctions to Prizes, sweepstakes, and lotteries 5%
NS get-rich-quick schemes—accounted for about 55% Foreign money offers 4%
O
ATI of the total. Some of the top categories of consumer-fraud Telephone services 3%
USTR Source: The Associated Press complaints in 2003, by percentage: Other 16%
ILL
COMMUNICATIONSOF THE ACM April 2004/Vol. 47, No. 4 9
News Track
changes, which are quite rare. Concerns about the BBC News Online reports the process of turning a
impeachability of digital photos are one reason shopper into a photo-realistic avatar occurs in real
many police departments have been hesitant to time; video cameras snap the shopper and then
ditch film for crime scene photographs and forensic clothes and accessories are selected and displayed
analysis. However, others point out newer software immediately on screen. The avatar replicates the
such as More Hits and recent versions of Photoshop shopper’s exact measurements, giving him or her a
can automatically log changes made to an image so true sense of how the clothes will look as they walk
the alterations can be reproduced by others. and move. Toshiba expects the system will revolu-
tionize online shopping by eliminating the current
Women Got Game
mix of static mannequins. The system could be in
A new survey from America Online claims that use by 2006.
when it comes to burning the midnight oil playing
Awkshun Serchs
online games, older
women take the lead. Some lonely eBay sellers, long puzzled by the lack of
Findings of the AOL online enthusiasm for their goods, are now the
study indicate U.S. favored folks for a growing cult of bargain hunters
women over the age of who search the auction site for those who simply,
40 spend nearly 50% well, can’t spell. Yes, a staunch group of eBay hunters
more time each week are finding some serious bargains by ferreting out
playing online games such products as labtop computers, Art Deko vases,
than men and are more camras, saffires, comferters, antiks, and dimonds
likely to play online (spellings all found in a recent eBay search). The
games daily than men New York Times reports a growing number of eBayis-
or teens. More than a tas search specifically for misspellings,
quarter of those knowing there is likely a frustrated
women play their seller on the other end who will
favorite games between midnight and accept a lowball bid just to
5 a.m.; the majority tends to favor word and get rid of the item(s).
puzzle games. AOL also researched the gam- Often these buyers will
ing habits of major U.S. cities and found then turn around and
that people who play games online in Los sell the item all over
Angeles are more likely (31%) to form again on eBay for a
offline relationships than the national aver- much higher price sim-
age (18%). Atlanta and Boston were the ply because they spelled
most game-happy cities overall, at about eight the item’s name cor-
hours per capita per week. rectly. Educators say it’s
not so much a matter of
Perfect Fit
more bad spellers in the popula-
Those who loathe the shopping experience, espe- tion; it’s that the online world has done a great deal
cially trying on clothes, will be relieved to know toward publicly exposing them. c
that Toshiba has teamed up with Osaka-based Dig-
ital Fashion to create a 3D virtual you to dress. Send items of interest to [email protected]
Image Makeover Do-Over
We’ve heard from several readers regarding an item in last month’s Newstrack column (Mar. 2004, p.9). The “Image Makeover”
entry points to results from a three-year UCLA study of Net and non-Net users in 14 countries. Included in the remarks were
findings of gender gaps in Net usage among the surveyed countries. The correct statement should have read: The gender gap is
most prevalent in Italy where 41.7% of the men and 20.1% of the women are Internet users. The lowest gap was in Taiwan where
25% of the men and 23.5% of the women use the Net.
10 April 2004/Vol. 47, No. 4 COMMUNICATIONSOF THE ACM
Open Source vs. Capitalism
and Communism
R R
obert L. Glass related • Open source software is often obert L. Glass seems to
open source/free software developed for a profit. For think “success” for open
and communism in his instance, hardware manufactur- source software means other
“Practical Programmer”column ers might finance the develop- forms of software development
(“A Look at the Economics of ment of free software drivers in will be driven out of business.
Open Source,”Feb. 2004), order to improve their sales in There is, in fact, room for many
emphasizing the failure of the lat- competitive markets. models and styles of developing
ter in order to question the sound- • Software is largely geared to par- software, and the bazaar style of
ness of the former. However, open ticular industries in that it gener- open source software development
source/free software development ally involves low equipment is but one of them.
and communist economies differ costs, and the marginal cost of An article on the economics of
in many ways: an additional copy can be driven open source should have described
• Nobody is forced to write “free close to zero. The collaborative when open source has and when it
software.” In a communist econ- writing of software—where a lacks competitive advantage. A key
omy, the collective or, in many product may be used by thou- feature of the bazaar style is that
regimes, the bureaucracy assigns sands of users—thus makes programmers are also users, and
tasks to workers. more sense than the collabora- requirements analysis and require-
• Many free software contributors tive building of industrial prod- ments documents are not needed.
have a vested interest in what they ucts where each copy requires This works when the software is
write. Programmers may, for expensive materials and a dedi- used primarily by programmers
example, write a device driver for cated work force. but not when used by other
a device they bought but are Glass also assigned too much specialists.
unable to use under Linux. Hav- importance to the claims of Since developers are distrib-
ing written the driver, the pro- “columnists” and “open-source uted, design communication is
grammers are likely better off advocates.” Do their opinions rep- difficult. The bazaar style works
making it available to the general resent the majority of open source better with systems reflecting a
public, allowing others to improve contributors—or are they just the well-known design (such as any-
N
O it while discharging the original most outspoken? thing taught in a CS course). It
WATS authors from its maintenance— David Monniaux works less well with innovative
AUL clearly a win/win outcome. Paris, France designs. Innovative designs work
P
COMMUNICATIONSOF THE ACM April 2004/Vol. 47, No. 4 11
Forum
better with a cathedral-style free; they do, however, expect to opportunity in the first place if
process or with a process that be paid for the value their effort the products of private software
enables regular communication adds to the software. As with any companies did not involve histori-
among developers. Fortunately for profession, they decide when to cally high margins and retail
the bazaar style, most software work pro bono. prices. One result of open source
does not involve innovative Clark E. Hartsock, III might be to force the lowering of
design. Unfortunately, most soft- Emeryville, CA prices of proprietary software and
ware is not designed to be used by the squeezing of margins while
F
programmers. rom the point of viewof also winning greater market share
Beyond the bazaar style, some someone living in the demo- before the next Linus comes
open source software, including cratic and capitalist society of along.
qmail and ghostscript, were devel- North America, it’s impossible not I like the open source move-
oped by individual genius pro- to respect those who strongly sup- ment, especially its people and
grammers. Software development port the open source movement. their passion, but worry that as
by geniuses is a well-known and But because of our capitalist econ- increasingly dependent as North
successful way of developing soft- omy it’s equally difficult not to see America is on intellectual prop-
ware, limited mainly by the sup- the possibility of it producing erty, the movement might in the
ply of geniuses. The bazaar style is future economic problems, as dis- long term erode our GDP and
interesting because it is so differ- cussed by Robert L. Glass. therefore our overall standard of
ent from traditional software In a capitalist society, deliber- living.
development and can be used by ately providing intellectual effort Ken Nickerson
regular programmers. for free seems a poor economic Aurora, Ontario, Canada
Open source software is already decision. Indeed, as our society
a success. It will not eliminate has moved up the economic food Author Responds:
F
other forms of software, though in chain from natural resources to ar too many conversa-
a few cases it will dominate. Pro- manufacturing to products tionsabout open source end
grammers who avoid all open increasingly based on intellectual in acrimony, with each side
source software are making a mis- content the open source move- charging the other is at best igno-
take. Few programmers will ever ment could ultimately affect our rant and at worst evil. I was in
spend much time developing GDP much like piracy affects it. general pleased with the objective
open source software, but most Open source developers from tone of these Forum comments.
will take advantage of it. All soft- democratic and capitalistic soci- Some important points were
ware developers should under- eties are “funded” by those soci- made: that open source use is suc-
stand the strengths and weaknesses eties’ increasing GDP before they cessful and growing, but that
of open source, as well as when to even write their code. Ironically, growth is not destined to super-
use it as a development strategy. open source developers might sede proprietary source; that per-
Ralph Johnson negatively affect potential eco- haps we tend to listen too much
Urbana, IL nomic incentives to invest in to columnists and gurus on this
future developers. subject and not enough to ordi-
R
obert L. Glass’s column Linus Torvalds was initially nary practitioners; and that it is
did little more than provide drawn to his work on Linux important to know when particu-
evidence that Glass does because he could not afford a lar software development methods
not understand the core principle Unix license or the kind of high- (including open source) are useful
upon which the open source end machine he would need to and when they are not.
movement is based. The premise run Unix. I can’t help but wonder I would like to add that my
of the movement is that authors whether open source would have column should have said that the
do not necessarily program for still had its window of economic most interesting and unique char-
12 April 2004/Vol. 47, No. 4 COMMUNICATIONSOF THE ACM
acteristic of open source is that job vacancies, said that the sup- Design for Pedagogy Not
programmers tend to do it for posed shortfall had failed “to live Just for Software
T
free and not imply it is a neces- up to its prior billing.” Mean- wo points need to be made
sary characteristic. However, I while, the high-tech industry actu- about Cong-cong Xing’s and
disagree with the letter writer ally laid off workers at four times Boumi Belkhouche’s “On
who said that open sourcers are the rate of other industries. Pseudo Object-Oriented Program-
paid for the “value added” they The truth is that H-1B visa ming Considered Harmful” (Tech-
create. This may be true, but it workers and outsourcing have led to nical Opinion, Oct. 2003).
certainly is not commonly true. lower wages and higher unemploy- The authors overemphasized
And I vigorously disagree with all ment among high-tech workers. the distinction between design and
claims that open source program- Not only did a 2001 National coding, saying: “We need to sepa-
mers and their programs are nec- Research Council report conclude rate the essence of OOP from
essarily the best. There is no that H-1B visas have had an OOP languages to avoid entan-
evidence to support such claims, adverse effect on wage levels, a gling coding and design issues.”
and common sense says they are UCLA study cited by Matloff Preventing entanglement of cod-
unlikely to be true. showed that H-1B workers are ing and design issues is impossible
Robert L. Glass paid 30% less than comparable since they are an unbroken contin-
Bloomington, IN Americans. A Cornell University uum; design leads naturally to
study found the difference to be implementation and implementa-
What Worker Shortage? 20% to 30%. tion back to design, especially in
I
n “Programming Languages In 2003, the U.S. Bureau of debugging. To regard each as a
and Gender” (Jan. 2004), Labor Statistics reported that distinct activity contradicts the
Ronald Dattero and Stuart D. unemployment among electronics axiom that the objective is to pro-
Galup began by stating: “The engineers had soared to 7% and duce a working system.”
scarcity of information technology among computer hardware engi- A prime OOP objective is to
workers has been widely acknowl- neers to 6.5%. The IEEE stated model real-world objects using
edged.” that these employees had lost software objects. The out object
The idea that there is a shortage 241,000 jobs over the previous and methods of Java’s system
of IT workers in the U.S. is false, two years, while computer scien- classes model the output stream
and I was disappointed that these tists and systems analysts lost well enough—and is all one needs
authors adhered to such a view. A 175,000 jobs. to display, say, “Hello world.” For
leading U.S. academic expert on Companies can increase profits educational purposes, a number of
the computer technology industry, by spending less on labor. The authors have wrapped these good-
Norman Matloff of the University claims over the past several years enough elements into two addi-
of California, Davis, has demon- that there is a shortage of high- tional classes—HelloWorld and
strated there is no shortage of tech workers has been nothing UseHello—that add nothing to
U.S. workers to fill these jobs, and more than an effort to employ displaying the string. Adding
several studies confirm his cheaper labor, first by bringing for- unnecessary complexity, even for
conclusion. eign workers to the U.S. and, an apparently good purpose, is not
As far back as 1998, at the more recently, by increasing out- a good idea. Designing-in peda-
height of the worker-shortage con- sourcing to foreign nations. gogy is as important as design
cerns, the U.S. General Account- Highly skilled and competent itself in software.
ing Office could not substantiate workers are readily available in the Alex Simonelis
the claims of such a shortage. In U.S. I hope the authors take note Montreal
the same year, the Information of this.
Please address all Forum correspondence to the
Technology Association of Amer- Marc Bellusci
Editor, Communications, 1515 Broadway, New
ica admitted, after its own study of Harrison, NY York, NY 10036; email: [email protected].
COMMUNICATIONSOF THE ACM April 2004/Vol. 47, No. 4 13
John White
ACM’s Professional Development
Centre Expands Learning
Opportunities
O
ne of ACM’s goals is to continually pro- in some of the most popular content areas—Java
vide our members with meaningful pro- Technology, Project Management, and Networking.
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Ongoing interest from members for additional professional
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The expanded PDC encompasses greater content resources possible. c
areas, including specific topics such as C/C++,
Oracle 9i, NET, and Flash MX while adding courses John White is the executive director and CEO of ACM.
14 April 2004/Vol. 47, No. 4 COMMUNICATIONSOF THE ACM
The Profession of IT
Peter J. Denning
The Social Life of Innovation
Fostering a change of practice in a community is much more difficult than
inventing a new technology. The practice of innovation can be learned—
once you know what it is.
I
nnovation is one of the most tices of innovation throughout impact unless adopted into prac-
celebrated aspects of technol- the organization. What are these tice, I use innovation to mean the
ogy. Business leaders consider practices? What must one learn to adoption of a new practice in a
innovation a core compe- become a skilled innovator? How community. Innovation is there-
tency, the only way to assure mar- fore a social transformation in a
ketplace strength for lean community.
organizations. Popular technology I draw a sharp distinction
magazines annually venerate top between innovation and invention.
innovators with special articles Invention means simply the cre-
and profiles. Books on innova- ation of something new—an idea,
tion—for example, The Innova- an artifact, a device, a procedure
tor’s Dilemma[2], Creative (see [6–8] for recent examples).
Destruction[5], and Value There is no guarantee that an idea
Migration[9]—are frequent or invention, no matter how clever,
bestsellers. Our computing grad- will become an innovation. Pre-
uates have been steeped in stories serving the distinction is crucial
of computing technologies that because, as will be discussed
changed the world—and many shortly, the practice of innovation
dream of one day doing likewise. is not a practice of inventing.
Considering these circumstances, Innovation requires attention to
I cited innovation as one of com- other people, what they value
puting’s core practices; a practice and will adopt; invention requires
without which one cannot be a only attention to technology.
complete professional (see my Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of
November 2003 column). Ethernet, speaks of this distinc-
Many organizational leaders tion colorfully. In a 1999 inter-
speak of their desire to establish a view, his interlocutor exclaimed,
“culture of innovation.” They can teachers help those who seek “Wow, it was the invention of the
mean: without special urgings by the skill? This column suggests Ethernet that enabled you to buy
leadership, everyone in the orga- answers to these questions. your house in Boston’s Back Bay!”
nization is busy finding ways to Metcalfe responded: “No, I was
help customers (and themselves) Innovation versus Invention able to afford that house because I
NOS improve their practice. A culture The word innovation has been sold Ethernets for 10 years!”
E
AL of innovation cannot be achieved used to mean either new ideas or Although business innovations
D
N
A without cultivating personal prac- new practices. Since ideas have no get the lion’s share of attention,
R
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