As artists think alike…

I’ve always been wondrin’ why we need to spend too much time doing our documents for proposals down from researches up to printing of hard copies, if in the end, we’ll find out that its end product will just be stocked half-rotten on shelves. Proposal documents are of course not among those which will be piled up, but still, once they’re approved, another documents to be processed become candidates for "safe-keeping" award. I’m seeing most of these hard-bound books and I’d ask myself, "does anybody ever read them?" The only reason I can think of when somebody decides to open those books is when he needs to do another research (and those books will be especially used for Review of Related Studies), and the research he’d conduct will end up the same, and so on and so forth. That’s the most of its relevance I can imagine. Though, there may be little chances that depending on the topic of the researches of these books, new technologies can be produced, but if they’re about systems development and not purely research, will they really become basis of innovation?

These are documents written for computerized systems. Systems which I even doubt that they can last for years, or shall we say, systems which I doubt that they’ve been actually deployed by their client companies. I believe, wise companies don’t take the risks of implementing computer systems developed by undergrads. Even if it takes them less cost, still, they will never trust inexperienced student programmers to deploy these software. They would rather spend thousands of cash for those professionals already in the industry for years.

In my opinion, students are instructed to develop systems for one reason: practice. But it’s not what I would really aim if I were to produce such applications. Even if I’ll be given the lowest grade for the course, I will still aim to convince the client to make use of my software, because if the company won’t use it, then I have just made my biggest failure as a system developer. I would spend most of my time enhancing the quality of my software, rather than waste it fixing the documents. Client companies, who are the end-users, won’t understand those research papers, except for the documentation on how to use the software. For them, they serve no point. They’ll just skip to the "System Features" and "Help" pages.

If I were to be asked what panelists would really need to check when it’s already time for defense, I’d say "Test its quality. Check for flaws. Judge the features. Comment on its user-friendliness. Review the source codes", and of course, "Decide if it’s ready to be deployed and become among of the client company’s assets". For me, my thesis is my first and my most memorable major software. I’ve done enough practices way back when I was still in the lower years and I can’t afford to waste all of them just for another petty test.