On this blog we’ve talked about the imprecision of natural language and the problems it can present in drafting requirements. Forget requirements - what would you think of a tool that could turn natural language into software code? Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Well, there is already such a tool in the works, although it’ll probably still be a while before they’ve ironed out all the wrinkles.

Writing software has been relatively difficult since people began programming computers in the mid-1900s. Although programming a computer is eminently useful — it gives you fine control of a powerful tool — it requires learning a programming language.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are aiming to remove this requirement. They have taken a step toward that goal with a language-to-code visualizer dubbed Metafor.

The visualizer uses natural language instructions to sketch the outlines of a program. It can be used as a programming learning tool and to provide rough drafts of programming projects, and could lead to more complete programming-by-natural-language methods.

Formal computer programming languages are difficult to write and inflexible, said Hugo Liu, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This makes them “quite a pain to debug and maintain,” he said. “Hence the task of programming is rendered inaccessible to the general public.”

Natural languages like English, on the other hand, are universally accessible, said Liu. “Natural language is so semantically rich and flexible that if it could be computationalized as a programming language, maybe everyone could write programs,” he said.

I love the idea. Imagine being able to “code” your own software if you could just articulate what you want in natural language. While the notion seems surprising, I suppose I’ve seen development tools trending this way for a while. I remember being on a project a while back that implemented a rules engine. The notion there was that the business wanted to be able to make changes to promotions and to product portfolios whenever they wanted to, and not to have to wait for a scheduled software release with all of its overhead. This package was to make it so a business owner could make these changes via a relatively simple user interface.

So, while there are obvious implications to software developers here, what do developments like this mean to the business analyst? How will these jobs be affected if/when the day arrives that any old Joe can develop applications? What do we need to do to ensure that our skills aren’t marginalized as new tools simplify what were previously complex tasks requiring specialized training?

I don’t claim to have the answers, but I suppose it is something we should all be considering. What are your thoughts on the tool? On it’s implications? What other revolutionary tools have you heard of that will soon change the way we solve business problems? As always, I’ll be interested in reading your comments.

Originally posted on JonathanBabcock.com as:

New Tools - and Their Implications

I know of one or two readers in the chapter that have happened by this blog, so for you and any others who may have happened by, I look forward to meeting with you on Tuesday.

For those of you in the area, here are the details as I know them:

When:
Tuesday, February 26, 6:30 PM

Where:
UPS
55 Glenlake Parkway NE, Atlanta
Sandy Springs, GA 30328

RSVP by February 22, 2007– events@atlanta.theiiba.org
Cost to attend – Free for Greater Atlanta Chapter members, $5 for non-members

Topic: “Redefining the Requirements Equation: RLA = T3.”
Speaker: Keith Barrett, Business Development Manager, Sky I.T. Group

I get my information on IIBA happenings in Atlanta from the chapter website, and the IIBA Atlanta Yahoo Group.

Originally posted on JonathanBabcock.com as:

Going to the Atlanta IIBA Chapter Meeting

I have more to say, but first here are a few fun facts about jonathanbabcock.com’s first year (thanks to the productologist for the idea).

Number of visitors: Approximately 12,300 unique visitors. I can’t give the exact number because 3 tracking mechanisms each return slightly different results. Ok, I’m not breaking any records, but it’s more than I would have guessed a year ago.

Number of Posts: 67 (an average of just over 1 per week)

Number of Subscribers: Typically between 100 and 120 on a given day.

First commenter: Michael Schaffner. By the way, Mike’s “Why I Blog” post that he wrote about a week after I began my blog helped me understand the value of establishing a personal brand and inspired me to get off my tail and start taking blogging seriously.

My Favorite Posts:

• McDonald’s Burgers and High-Quality Business Analysts
• Good Requirements Are More Than Just Accurate
• Thought, Problems, and Business Analysts
• Business Analysts and the Abilene Paradox
• Business Analysts: SME’s or Generalists?

Number of different blog themes used: 4. In case you’re interested, here’s the list:

• Blue Zinfandel by Brian Gardner
• Blogging Pro
• Zeke by Solostream
• Suhweet also by Solostream. This is my current theme, btw.

One of the reasons I wanted to begin blogging was so I could learn more about “why” we do the things the way we do as business analysts. I wanted to learn more about how other people in other types of environments deal with challenges common to all business analysts.

I spend each working day in the trenches applying process, methodology, my own professional skills, etc., to make projects work. Over time, I have improved quite a bit at the daily, tactical business analysis activities. What I found that I didn’t have as a daily practitioner was an effective outlet to help me broaden my knowledge of the general concepts, approaches and skills that would make me as well-rounded a BA as possible. I think the blog has definitely helped in that area. Instead of an extension of work, this has really become an enjoyable hobby.

Another benefit I’ve found is that actually composing my thoughts in printed form has helped me evaluate them more fully, and challenge them in ways I hadn’t before. Sharing my thoughts on the Web has pushed me to do some additional research into some of the things I’d always believed and to challenge previous assumptions to make sure that they would withstand the scrutiny of an informed and intelligent base of readers (you guys!).

Anyway… the blog has been great for me. I hope it has been of some use to you, and will continue to get better with age. Again, thanks!

Originally posted on JonathanBabcock.com as:

Happy 1st Birthday, Blog!

Anyway, let’s take a short break from the rigors of discussing processes, documents, diagrams, meetings, deadlines, and the other everyday challenges of what we do as business and/or technology professionals while Carnegie Mellon Computer Science professor, Randy Pausch shares some of his “lessons learned.”

[Dr. Pausch], was about to give a lecture Tuesday afternoon, but before he said a word, he received a standing ovation from 400 students and colleagues.

They had come to see him give what was billed as his “last lecture.” This is a common title for talks on college campuses today. Schools such as Stanford and the University of Alabama have mounted “Last Lecture Series,” in which top professors are asked to think deeply about what matters to them and to give hypothetical final talks. For the audience, the question to be mulled is this: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance?

At Carnegie Mellon, however, Dr. Pausch’s speech was more than just an academic exercise. The 46-year-old father of three has pancreatic cancer and expects to live for just a few months. His lecture, using images on a giant screen, turned out to be a rollicking and riveting journey through the lessons of his life.

He began by showing his CT scans, revealing 10 tumors on his liver. But after that, he talked about living. If anyone expected him to be morose, he said, “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

You’ll definitely want to read the rest of the article for more of the wisdom that Dr. Pausch shared with his audience that day. If you’re interested, the video is also available here.

Here’s hoping for a miraculous recovery and that Dr. Pausch will be around to deliver many more “last lectures.”

Originally posted on JonathanBabcock.com as:

Dr. Pausch’s “Last Lecture”

Mistakes range from not updating frequently enough, to changing domain names, to usability and blogging software installation issues.

I haven’t read through all of the submissions (there are nearly 50 linked posts) but I have enjoyed the insights and taken advantage of some very useful tips.

If you are a new blogger, or have simply thought of giving it a go, there are some great pearls of wisdom here. Check it out!

Originally posted on JonathanBabcock.com as:

Mistakes Bloggers Make

The sponsoring organization, Camp Fire USA describes the program on their website like this:

What’s so absolutely incredible?

Kids. They’re absolutely incredible. And each year on the third Thursday of March, Camp Fire USA encourages adults to let kids know just how valuable they are.

Absolutely Incredible Kid Day is a national, annual letter-writing campaign urging adults to write letters of love and support to the children in their lives. It only takes a few minutes, and the positive impact can last a lifetime.

My company volunteered this year to write letters to children in some local elementary schools. If you or your company would be interested in participating, sponsorship information is available here.

If you are participating, and would just like to look at a sample letter, click here to take a look at the letter I wrote this year.

There aren’t many things more worthwhile than trying to brighten a young one’s day.

Originally posted on JonathanBabcock.com as:

Participate in “Absolutely Incredible Kid Day”

There are currently a host of Content Management System (CMS) packages available. You can spend a fortune on purchasing a system and having it installed professionally, or you can go the open source route and do it yourself at little to no cost.

The best way to decide which package you want is to determine what you need it to do. Once you’ve established your business requirements, you may also want to find out what other “bells and whistles” are typically available in a CMS package.

Nueronic-IT has done a really nice job of gathering some common requirements requested by CMS customers and providing an assessment of the Top 40 CMS Features.

Based on those features, I can make a few recommendations of some open source packages that I am either using, or have at least tested.

1. Joomla. I use Joomla for my personal blog and have found it to be the most flexible and feature-rich of the open source products.
2. Drupal is another, feature-rich system that has just undergone some major updates.
3. I evaluated PostNuke for a little while, and really liked it. It is a little more “boxy” than Joomla, and doesn’t offer as many plugins or templates, but is a classic with a huge user community.
4. If you’re looking for a Learning Management System (LMS), then Moodle is an excellent choice.
5. If you’re hooked on Microsoft technologies, ASP Nuke might be just your thing. It’s a modular Active Server Pages Web portal supporting MySQL/SQLServer.

Other packages that are worth a look, but that I know less about include: Xoops, TYPO3, Geeklog and PHP-Nuke.

In the end, you may just determine that blog software like Wordpress will suit your content-management needs just fine.

If nothing else, hopefully this post will make you aware of the features and some of the pakages that are available to you for your use.

Originally posted on JonathanBabcock.com as:

What are you looking for in a Content Management System (CMS)?

This post is to bring attention to an open source application and data modelling software offering called Open System Architect (OSA) sponsored by CodeByDesign .

Per their description:

Open System Architect (OSA) is an application used for modelling a system. OSA currently supports data modelling (physical and logical) with UML in the works. The unique thing about OSA is that it is an Open Source product licensed under the General Public License (GPL). The free factor makes OSA particularly interesting for students but OSA is powerful enough to compare favourably with products costing thousands of dollars.

I don’t do much in the way of data modelling in my current role, but I did download and poke around in the app. a little bit, and can tell you that it does have some nice features, and is well worth the look - especially for you small business owners that could do without having to license similar commercial software.

Originally posted on JonathanBabcock.com as:

Open Source Data Modelling Tool - Worth a Look!