Directions

"Building novel software: the researcher and the market-place" by P.J. Brown is an interesting paper, not because of its discussion of Guide, but because of its discussion of the issues of bring software developed in a research environment to market. In three to five pages, discuss some of the generic issues about software development. In particular pay attention to how these issues may be solved and/or may affect the future. Some ideas to consider.

• "...building something that people will use means making big sacrifices in the research aims. In particular the prime quality of any research, novelty, must be kept in check."
• "We develop tools aimed only at computer scientists exactly like ourselves."
• "...the best approach for continuing research funding is to get close to the goals of the research but never quite to achieve them"
• "...if you are designing a new approach to software, how radical can you afford to be?"
• "Worse still, a price of having a community of users is that there is a demand for compatibility between one version and the next, thus perpetuating mistakes."
• Especially for those in the UI Course, "in HCI, the siren has introduced the general interface that can be customised to cover everyone from beginner to expert."
• Researchers may, on the one hand, adopt the maxim that the user is always right. On the other hand, the researchers may take the somewhat arrogant view that their role is to educate the users."