hi all,
this picks up on an earlier thread by Red1 & Raja Iskandar, on are we
loosing the branding war for the MSC... and also out of informal,
sometimes rather heated and passionate discussion of Msia's IT
future...
But the point is we are behind left behind! In Auto ind. we lost to
Thailand, Semiconductor to China, Taiwan; because we are longer a low
cost provider, and cannot move up the value chain, BioTech - can we
even start?
And I only wish some of the 'higher ups' can get in on this
conversation, but .....
For IT, this is my point of view, it summarises some of the other threads ...
yes its criticism, but also suggestions as to how we can move on. It
is urgent, beacuse if we don't do something about the IT strategy
within the next 2 (school generation, by that I mean yr 7 to Uni) we
as a nation, would will have lost the race....
The big questions is... how do we develop the IT manpower, both on a
quantitative and qualitative perspective...
2. Developing SW developers - IT k-workers for the k-economy
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my question, is what type of developers are we trying to develop? In
an earlier post, "Which Type of Programmer are You", programmers are
catgerorised in 5 levels:
1. Visionary
2. Trailblazer
3. Workhorse
4. Drone
5. Idiot
The Level 3 & 4 are the bread-&-butter, suitable for industries like
outsourcing, ala Bangalore... which basically is maintenance and
upgrade sorta of work. This is the lower rung workers in the IT
K-economy. They are esential, but these workers will unlikely produce
global 'killer-apps'. Again look at India, .... what killer app have
they produced?
But having said that, M'sia can't even produce decent lvl 3 & 4
coders, as evidenced by the failure of Foreign Investors like InfoSys,
BT, being able to find such workers. Sure, if we just wanna earn
foreign revenue from outsourcing then we gotta train (lots of) lvl 3 &
4 workers.
But if we are to be globally competitive, and produce world class
products of our own, (as per PM's comment) then we gotta have the lvl
1 & 2 programmers!
As a side note, we seem to have a surplus of the lvl5 programmers....
ie: the unemployed IT grads. Altho I'd rather put the majority of
blame the Edu system for this rather than the aptitude of the
individuals, due to the 'Idiot' syllabus and inadequate career
counseling or screening for IT courses.
This last point is important and relevant... (filtering and accepting
right candidates for Comp. Sc.) Assuming Edu gets its act together and
offers a effective Comp Sc course, because:
1. such a program has a substantial cost, say 50K (Red & Raja's figures)
to produce a competent programmer
2. Places may be limited
3. Each 'idiot' candidate that failed, due to inadequate screening,
results in a missed opportunity for someone with talent.
4. This program has to be on a purely meritocratic, forget all the
racial bullshit, because this IS FOR A NATIONALISTIC AGENDA,
for Msia to be No.1 !
Then, how to we structure the program/courses?
The course shld be targetted to whether we are trying to produce Lvl
1 & 2 programmers, or the Level 3 & 4 programmers.
to target the Lvl 1 & 2 programmers
a. Design better IT Courses.
have 'hard core' programming degree course
I think, there needs to be a streamlining for the so called IT
courses. There are too many of them and some of them have noting to do
with programming - such as 'IT Management', 'IT & Finance'..., Network
Engineering, (e.g.where you just have CCNA or MCSE as major component
of the syllabus) etc..
There should be at least one 'hard-core' degree program called Comp
Sc. which should combine principles of Systems (low-level stuff like
Operating Systems, Network programming/protocols,) with higher level
stuff like language and compiler design, then the application & web
development stuff like SW Engineering - methodoolgy, UML, OOP,
functional languages...., distributed processing models, and esoteric
stuff like that.
I think also important and it may also overlap with EE (Electronic
Eng.) is subjects on lower level stuff like Assembler, emmbedded
systems, circuit and probably going into chip design. If Msia wants to
produce 'products', you cant avoid Hardware - re: the thumbdrive IS A
PIECE OF HW & SW! (FYI the standard USB chip (by Intel) is a CPU in
its own right, and can be programmed to drive motors, ie: a simple
robot, I know a M'sian that has done this!)
Another area to explore is integration of IT with Green Technology and
BioTech. Both of these fields CANNOT exists without the state of
computing being what it is.... With Green Tech, control systems are
needed to manage energy, sense temperature, wind speed etc... and in
biotech, genetic sequencing or bioinformatics NEEDS massive computing
power. Our future directions in teaching and developing homegrown
technology, MUST include these areas. Perhaps course could be
combined.
b. Talent scouting
My point of contention is that in developed countries, students who
enter Uni for Comp. Sc. ALREADY DO PROGRAMMING, they picked it up
while they are in early teens, whereas Msian Comp Sc students enter
Uni, TO LEARN PROGRAMMING! How to catch up!
Hence the level of the course shld be HIGHER, its not to teach someone
to program, but the minimum requirements is that they already know to
program!
Hence have a program like the 'Gifted Kids' program undertaken by the
PM's wife for identifying and training gifted children. Contests and
other mecahnisms could be used to identify aptitude, skills at an
early age, say yr 7-12, and nurture them. And such programs should be
nationwide, and involve all schools with computers, irregardless of
'Smart Schools'.
b. get 'outside' lecturers
I suspect when it comes teaching the higher level subject matter, most
of the current crop of lecturers will be out of their depth, unless
they have done research and worked in industry...
Hence, such a program should work closely with Industry; get good
programmers who are already doing stuff in industry, to be guest
lecturers. Also, forget about the Masters degree requirements, that
Edu seems to be fixated on, these individuals may not have the paper
qualifications but they certainly have higher applied skills than some
lecturers.
I suspect most of them would not mind sharing their knowledge, but
were never asked nor appreciated! And pay them a decent rate, not
peanuts
c. use FOSS for teaching
The excuse for using proprietary SW. for teaching is that industry
demand is such, this argument is fast fading and opportunities for
FOSS related careers is rapidly emerging.
Another reason why its fading is that the proprietary SW (PSW) vendors
themselves are becoming 'Open' in order to embrace market forces...
e.g. MS PHP initiative, Open Solaris, Jave being OSS...
The other excuse for using PSW, is because of the 'savings' gained
when MS sponsors your entire faculty.... is an OXYMORON! There is zero
costs for FOSS!
But the big advantage of FOSS is the EXPOSURE gained that you cannot
otherwise do so with PSW. Similar to the learning of any skills, e.g.
if you are studying to be a painter you want to study works of great
artists like the Da'Vincci's 'Mona Lisa', or Van Gogh's
Sunflowers.... hence, access to the code in FOSS applications is a
REAL BENEFIT, you can't get on PSW.
The other big advantage of FOSS is that you can build on the work done
by other's, the "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" effect, which is
hard to do on PSW.
You also have the fact that FOSS innovates a lot faster than PSW, talk
about hot subjects like distributed databases that run on the cloud,
and you have several implementations on FOSS, where you just download
& try out. With PSW version costs you a bomb in licensing and you
can't even get started.
d. encourage a 'hacker' culture
(A HACKER is what we programmers refer to one of our peers with good
skills, and is VERY DIFFERENT from the media's definition of seedy
indviduals creating mischief on other people's computers, we call them
CRACKERS)
As Marcus mention, the impression is that Programmers are at the
bottom of the food-chain in IT industry, and its equivalent to menial
tasks. Hence IT graduates rather become Sales or Support. Some even
have the misconception they can be Systems Analysts or Project
Managers without becoming Programmers firsts! (And if there are such
persons, they quickly become disasters!, and I have seen it happen in
M'sia!)
A good programmer(s) are key employees in any tech company, and when
they leave, the company usually transforms for the worst, and most
become uncompetitive and fade away.
A good hacker, has to be organized and disciplined, be knowledgeable
and versatile; able to learn quickly & have good problem solving
skills, be focussed and logical... and have a fair amount of
intelligence. All these traits, that would be very beneficial if
taught at school age, and are invaluable for any profession in the
K-economy. Yet in Malaysia, programming is not taught or encouraged at
school, and when they come out to work, programmers, who presumably
have this skills, seem to be less valued and rewarded.than
counterparts in other professions (law, finance, accounting,
marketing)....
So obviously we are sending the wrong message, if we want/need
programmers. I know of some smart and good IT grads who are
technically capable, yet that ended up not doing IT, because they
taught it was not challenging/glamourous and had dim career prspects.
They ended up in finance etc...
At the grassroots level, programming should be encouraged as a fun &
challenging activity, as a hobby, not a chore, and ways should be
found so that programmers/nerds have fame and recognition among their
peers, as well as by the public in general. I think programming
competitions, such as the 24hr web challenge during MyGOSSCONF is a
good start. The media can play a role here.
There's no coverage given to programming activities and MORE coverage
given to computer gamers! - geez! Perhaps the media can be a partner
to arrange more school orientated 'code hacking' activities... ( 'The
Star Programming Challenge' for e.g.) I'm sure the community can
brainstorm many such ideas... after all fame is a great motivator -
Red1 will agree!
e. create the ecosystem
All things have to work holistically. Often our the typical Msian
solution to things is to just attack the symptom head on, but not
address the underlying causes and associated environment and programs
fail. "Let's have a Silicon Valley" so we proceeded to bulldoze land,
put up buildings.... but no HR, poor skills, little industry (yes
2,400 MSC companies but...?) no real result!
.... I'll leave this for another post and perhaps others can add...
what I wanna say is gov. policies, Edu, industry, entrepreneurship,
venture capital and knowledge in all of the above has to exist before
there can be catalysis. And for all that to happen, we have to have a
CULTURE to support that. (ie: all great corporations have a successful
'corporate culture')
have fun, and let's brainstorm....... otherwise M'sia will really be
left behind!
--
#-------
regds,
Boh Heong, Yap
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