PNSQC successfully over

The PNSQC 2007 Conference is now over. It was a very well organized conference and there were some interesting talks. I got to deliver my own presentation on "Tick-the-Code Inspection: Empirical Evidence (on Effectiveness)", which was well received. Unfortunately, there weren't too many people there as three other sessions were running at the same time, but even so most of the listeners gave me the green light afterwards. Note to self: Give your papers a more selling title. You can't use Tick-the-Code until it is very well known. On the other hand, if you don't use it, it won't ever get familiar.

I had brought some rule cards to give away after the presentation and almost all went to interested people. The presentation was yesterday and even today a couple of people thanked me for it and asked for more information. That felt good. Before the presentation somebody told me that they had read my article in the Better Software magazine and he had found it interesting enough to join my presentation in the conference. That was nice.

I truly believe I am onto something big.

And when there were comments about the future, like "we have to take care of complexity of software, that's the main thing" in the "Open Mic" session at the end of the conference, that makes it even more clearly so. The complexity of software will inevitably grow in the future, and I have a practical answer to it! It might be a partial answer, but it is a good one, nonetheless.

I hope that the interest and enthusiasm of my listeners holds long enough and they are convincing enough towards their bosses, so that I can come back soon and organize some training sessions on this side of the Atlantic.

To drop some names: I met Hugh Thompson, finally talked with Dorothy Graham, Karl Wiegers very generously bought me a glass of wine, I saw Johanna Rothman speak many times, there was Dale Emery who seems to have similar interests to mine. There were some people from Europe too, like Andreas Schliep and Niels Malotaux. I also had an interesting talk with Sandeep Bhatia from Intuit and we even found a common acquaintance! How small the world is!

As my prediction of where the software industry is going in the next 25 years, I offered the following words: "In 25 years' time I will be retiring, and only good quality software will be produced in America, Germany, Finland, as it is so much cheaper to produce bad software elsewhere." What I meant was that because software is becoming more and more global, you can't compete with location, the only trump card you have is quality. Either the software production in more labour-costly countries learns to be better quality or it will die. Basic evolutionary theory. The companies surviving in America, Germany, Finland in 25 years' time have only survived because they learned to produce good quality software quickly enough. The quality must overcompensate for the higher labour costs, otherwise it makes no sense to produce it there.

I have caught a slight cold and am dreading the long flight tomorrow. I hope my ears won't block, that can hurt in an airplane.