MDLC

During the last two years, I kept on reading what Haitham and Dr.Mervat had written concerning their MSc, sharing their experiences, their thoughts, their feelings and many times they shared also scientific information as well… while I was reading, I wondered if there would be a day when I’d write about my MSc, will I have something to write about other than an annoying conflict with my supervisor, a negative feeling to expose…

I didn’t expect to have an entry labeled “master hassle” soon, but I was surprised as my first discussion about my research point with some Dr.s in the faculty came out with the beginning of the series… I’d try not to be totally sarcastic; rather I’d try to present even a single useful piece of information through each episode…

This methodology was derived from an example suggested by one of the Dr.s in the committee discussed my proposed research point today… ok let me tell the story from the beginning;

Macaroni Development Life Cycle (MDLC):

I was proposing my suggested research point which is based on the incorporation of a new family of development methodologies called ADM (Agile Development Methodologies) & a new thinking based on the development of the system as a set of services which are loose coupled called SOA (Service Oriented Architecture)…

From the business opinion, both approaches gained a mass range of audience through the past six years, or let me say, from the first moment they exist large organizations are trying to adapt their resources to accommodate even one from the two approaches out of their realization of the welfare those approaches may bring to their businesses; from the academic point of view, both approaches gain the same clamor celebrating their existence and many researches had been done to explore the two new worlds, either separately or mutually…

From Mansoura_fcian point of view, no one have the comprehensive mind to adopt a new concept that may replace the traditional techniques of software development, neglecting the vast number of benefits that can be gained by quitting adoption of traditional minds and bypassing any voice calling for change, on the other hand; they are totally bursting forth the migration from the traditional object orientation to the new mind of service orientation.

At first let me admit that the only distinguishing criterion that distinguishes most of CMU_mans staff is the intuition only – if found- and their opinions and thoughts in most cases not based on practical experiences or readings or researches… there is no space to consider specialization, because unfortunately, the slogan of most of CMU_mans staff is “5aleeeha 3ala Allah”…

Back to the main topic; I was trying to convince the committee about the viability of this research point based on the various strengths of both of the two approaches, and usage of the strength points of each of them to vanquish the weak points of the other… but I found myself stuck on justifying only the feasibility of the ADMs, the topic I wasn’t preferring to get into that time, for three important reasons: first, I hadn’t gained yet enough background about this part to the extent that makes me debate about it and be certain that I shall be able to convince the audience of my point of view; second, the committee hadn’t even one specialized member to debate logically based on any criterion rather than intuition and appeal, they don’t believe on the severe viability of analysis and design, instead they believe on the perceived sides of development such as colors, interfaces…finally; it is not my responsibility to justify either approaches my research relies on, I took them both for granted and my part is to justify the viability of their mixture…

The Dr. who insisted on the debate doesn’t know but SOA and thinks that the whole of the world can be abstracted in this approach which can be the silver bullet of any development project…

To describe and justify the proposed methodology, I’d begin with the example the Dr. himself had given:

“If we considered macaroni cooking, shall we consider the process as a whole in the beginning or we shall take it as a separated set of steps with no knowledge in advance about what the result shall be, and without planning the produced dish??”… He said

“but, if I was told that the chief Osama El-Saied is on a TV show now proposing a new trend in cooking macaroni, if I’m following a traditional mind I won’t have the space for flexibility in considering new receipts and the new trend, while if I’m following an agile methodology I can guarantee to have this flexibility”… I replied

In both cases, I know in advance that I’m going to have in the end macaroni, and adopting either of the two minds would guarantee that the process would begin with boiling the macaroni in the beginning and having the dish hot and salty in the end…

Following a traditional methodology would restrict the mind of “plan it when you are going to accomplish it”, instead you must be ready with your full plan in advance because you must have decided each step with its milestones precisely before even boiling the water; leaving no space for sudden circumstances or, sometimes, for upcoming risks; while you cannot prevent them from affecting you; and you may have at the end unsatisfied eaters who may take the meal for granted; which won’t be the case if you are developing a critical system or a software system that the organization was planning to have it as a competitive advantage…

So, to summarize the benefits we shall gain by adopting an agile methodology:

1-The ability to react, to respond quickly and effectively to both anticipated and unanticipated changes in the business environment.

2-And more than reaction to change is its ability to create change which requires innovation which is the ability to create new knowledge that provides business value.

3-Agile development is focused on delivering business value immediately as the project starts, thus reducing the risks of non-fulfillment regarding the contract.

4-Close collaboration between the development team and the customer to reduce the risk of a project since the correct interpretation of the customer needs is verified at every step.

5-I liked a statement I’d read about the development phase (the game phase) in Scrum: “expecting the unexpected”…

That’s what I’ve tried to tell him during the debate that lasted for about 30 minutes and resulted in:

1-More insistence from my side on what I’ve decided long ago

2-More realization of what I’m going to face for the coming journey

3-A supervisor who finally decided to interfere to put an end to the debate; not out of conviction of the concept, but out of boredom and to hasten leaving

4- The Dr. who was debating with me hadn’t been persuaded, but he praised me for being the only one of my colleagues who had proposed a real research point

5-A Dr. whom declared finally that he didn’t understand what we were debating about for the past 30 minutes!!!

By the end of this episode, I shall liken Software development process to the process of constructing a building; the real process is based on having the architect planning the scheme, designing and making the estimations of the cost, measurements and all related stuff; then we would have all the deliverables are handed- out to the civil engineer to implement them in real world with the aid of the builders… the debate comes actually from how each one of us shall consider this process; a few persons whom consider it as it occurs in reality; larger sector of perceivers would assume that the civil engineer is the only responsible in the whole process and he seeks the help of the builders to have it done that way; but unfortunately; mass amount of perceivers consider it the builders whom had built the building!!!

when you have much to give, no one to take

I’ve noticed my changing behavior through the last couple of weeks… I was amazed about it… I’ve noticed that I get too much impressed by any song I hear, any scene I see… I thought previously that I would give up being impressed by love scenes or by love songs as soon as I get out of it, and this caused me a great sadness inside, because this wrong belief indicated that I’d always be in a need to love to feel… and this is wrong absolutely, because love and sensitivity have a reciprocal bond…

In the past, mom always accused me of not having feelings about the surrounding events… she’d never understood that I’m one of those whom are internally affected and impressed… and then, I’ve decided on changing my attitude, believing on exposing my feelings to all those who deserve so would abridge the barriers between humans… “When you like or love someone, you should tell them, don’t rely on them to get it implicitly and don’t delay doing so, cause one day, you may regret not doing it on time… this person might go and be so far away to reach… you may get apart and you won’t be comforted by the feeling “I wish I could… I wish I had told them””… I was so impressed by mom’s quote to the extent that I always kept it in front of my eyes and chased it so hard…

I’ve tried to leave a mark, to make a difference, deeply affect everyone’s life as soon as I enter it… I’ve chased this belief to the extent that made many people not appreciating it if I need sometime alone, or if I’ve decided to leave someone’s life, expecting me always to do more with no performance degradation and with severe shower of reproach If I decided on giving less, even if my decision was justified by someone’s behavior with me… and in spite of this, I’ve found that the second place is always reserved for me, even in lives of those whom I gave a priority in my life and even if I’m capable of doing well in the first place… even with those people, there are no excuses for not doing so and with no tendency to expect doing less…

I’ve discussed those feelings in detail in “The rabbit and the turtle” but I desired to mention this here to get to the joint between those feelings and what I feel nowadays…

I’ve thought that I’d get rid of my horses, not completely, but I was always waiting for them to appear again and I was wondering in which form they shall appear and at which point they would restart their hunt again…

I thought that having this too much anger- though it had never got on the surface- was an evolution in the horses’ chase… then this anger was mixed with this destructive desire to hurt and torture myself for what I’ve reached concerning my emotional life… but during last month I’ve passed through a quiet cautious era – thanks Allah- … the thing that worried me a lot, of course not being calm and stable, but it is the question about how it shall come up again… because I can’t believe that this is the end… and if it is, it is not a comforting end – though it appears to be so – but I’m always very afraid about my accumulated hidden explosions, which reside in my unconscious part waiting for the suitable time to ruin it all, and I’ve many situations when I chose to postpone the explosion or I’ve massively not apparently justified explosions, the situation that I don’t prefer at all, so I’d rather prefer to finish It all on time…

The new thing, that may indicate that I’m approaching the end, is that I’m now overly affected by any situation, not only the sad ones, but also the happy ones… not only those which deserve affection… not only love scenes, but any situation that may involve any emotional passion…

Yesterday, I was very impressed by “Sara” [the series]…when she was crying, though I’ve seen those series many times…also two days ago I was so impressed by a woman holding her infant tightly, I felt that I’m holding it as well… there are many examples to mention here…

I’m happy for having such feelings as well as being worried, because I think this is temporal… more, I’m afraid to escape to fantasy and day-dreaming life to discharge my emotions as I hadn’t found the suitable person do help me in doing so… also, this attitude is very tiring, because you have all your nerves and emotions present in all the time, whether the situation deserves or not, and this is so feelings’ consuming…

Anyhow, I feel that I’m blessed to get gracefully out of it, and to approach the end of this all, with the least possible loss and even if this end comprises much acting, though I’ve tried a lot to go away and neither to harm nor to profit, but this wasn’t possible the way I thought it would be… despite this all, I think that this was the most decent mature scenario… I think till now I’m managing it well and I hope I could have much more peace in my life soon… I hope to regain my loud deep heartfelt laugh which I’d lost in the way two years ago… I hope… I hope… I hope…

The way between realism and mirage

A baby is born with his eyes closed, his legs tight to his stomach… once it begins to see, it begins to perceive the surrounding life, with all its bright and darker sides, with all its happiness and sorrows, with all its joy and grief…

Life doesn’t change its face, life doesn’t turn its back to us as we sometimes may declare to justify our sadness and our soul languish in sadness resistance… we are the ones whom change the views from which we interface with life….

A baby is born with a very pure heart; with no experiences, no opinions, and no inner hidden feelings towards anything… once this baby begins to have his own experiences, skills and feelings, he begins to seek a side of realism about life…

There are no extremes; this is one of the most important concepts about life… for example, there is no absolute happiness, instead, there are satisfaction and internal peace, which may lead is to a side of happiness but not the happiness itself… there is no black and no white, instead there is grey whose degree determines the closeness and the farness from the black and the white… babies can feel happiness, while adults feel satisfied, this to some extent may lead the dashing persons to live a faded life…

Let’s describe a model that may clarify the moral here:

Your birth determines your start, through the journey you pass by many milestones… till you reach your final destination… at your final destination, you have reached the last point or the extreme of a certain goal in your life, this extreme represents your extreme or the very far point that you can reach concerning a certain goal, this isn’t the extreme of the goal itself because everything in life is proportional, so there are no extremes…

More, the final destination here represents your death, after which you have nothing to do about your goals, thus your status at this point is your extreme…

The milestones here represent that checkpoints that you place after certain time intervals, and you pause your reactivity and proactivity to measure your performance regarding a certain topic… if you had already reached a level that you are satisfied of, then your performance in the next time interval would be increasing at a quiet confidence rate…

Each perception we perceive about the surrounding world, each situation we pass through- though it may be a repeated situation- is a life experience but we are the ones who decide when to begin counting… the ones whom are still with no adaptation or adjustment in their principles, beliefs, thoughts….. reacting to their life experiences and thinking that they are measuring on the scale of purity while they are actually measuring on the scale of idiocy rather than it is the scale of purity, because once the little baby had been scorch by the hot pot, it decides not to touch it again and may be it takes an aggressive action towards that pot.

Now, let’s expand the model a little:

Each baby is born with a basic set of needs which it is the responsibility of the adults to satisfy those needs. As the baby grows, his needs are increasing and he begins to take over the responsibility of fulfilling his needs.

To illustrate the model above, if a certain need has been split into three subneeds, then each need would have a satisfaction line over which many milestones are placed for evaluation… the summation of the performance achieved in all the subneeds’ satisfaction lines would form the actual rate of performance to satisfy the basic need…

If perfection is achieved in a subneed, this won’t necessary imply that the whole summations would be perfect, while if all the subneeds are satisfied and a level of perfection in achieved in a specific milestone, then the basic need is subsequently satisfied perfectly….

As long as you are seeking perfection you would not enjoy the desired internal peace even if you have at the moment all your needs satisfied perfectly except for only one…

The internal peace may result from two trends:

• Having all the basic needs (including the subneeds) perfectly satisfied..
• Having indifference trend concerning you life, you needs and your goals… this is of course an ill model of pretended internal peace.

To end this discussion I may justify the appearance of some persons enjoying everlasting internal peace can be explained as there are some persons whom seek perfection in a hurry and they are always seem to be anxious and worried, they may believe on failing once means endless era of failure where this mind isn’t true at all….

While there are some other people whom seek perfection but they have the wide mind to accept failures at any time of the journey believing that easy come easy go and confident that as long as they trust themselves to be capable of perfection, it will not leave their way…

Never Mind...Just Forget about it

One day I was walking with a friend who insisted on telling that he is the most troubled man ever, whose life isn’t going so well, with whom life is insisting on playing tricky games…

" أنا مش متخيل إيه اللى بيحصللى ده!! ... عُمرِك شفتى حد بيحصل معاه كل ده؟!!...حياتى بجد ماشية دراما ..لأ تراجيديا...مش متخيل الدنيا بتعمل معايا كده ليه ...محدش بيحصلّه نص اللى بيجرالى ده"

I smiled at him, though he chose the very wrong person to convince of his tragedy, but I was willing to listen to him… and I said a quote relates to my beliefs:

" إنت عارف ...هى تقريبا الأرض مكوّرة...أصلها لو مستطيل وللا متوازى مستطيلات كان ناس كتيره أوى هيختاروا إنه يجروا على أبعد زاويه أو ركن فيها علشان يهربوا من التواجد فى نفس المكان مع ناس معينة .. بس للأسف؛ الدراسات أثبتت إنها مكوّرة ومع كده برده إحنا لسه بندرو على أبعد نقطه"

I don’t know why I remembered this conversation while thinking about this entry elements, but I liked to begin with it… I think it, in some way, is related to the following points which are all strongly tight- coupled:

• I think I’m blessed to see it end that way, the same as I –secretly in my darkest deepest side- hoped to end… I’m blessed not for the end conformation with my hopes, but to witness it… a deep mind inside me was telling that the first end – my part- was for my benefit- of course this wasn’t my mind in the first shot, or let’s say in the first year after my first shock- but to believe that everything happens for good reasons, it is too hard and needs great persistence and maturity specially in heart stuff and related issues, because in most of those situations, logic and mind are misled by feelings, whether those feelings are love, happiness, desire, anger or even hurt….day- by- day I got evidences on the correctness of what I thought about both of them, even if all the surrounding people were sometimes trying to let me change my mind about him – coz, all people agreed upon her as being not so good- …
  I thought that witnessing them near, in their story, and having it touching my life, and for the ridicule of fates, the heroine declared many times that I’m the only one who understands her when she is talking about love, and I’m the one with whom she is very comforted while talking… I thought that all this is an affliction, but I was mistaken as in the end I got the moral which was to be totally and partially convinced of my end and to be completely satisfied that it is so fair, and was for my benefit…
  The question that rises here is that if I think it was a fair end for me and it was for my benefit, how shall it be the fair end for them as well?? Though I always believed that they both deserve each other?? And what would I say to prove that I’m not rejoicing at their misfortune??
  The answer would be simply that even if the evil ones appeal to each other, don’t they deserve to be hurt as the many people whom they – intentionally- caused to be hurt…
  A side-note: you hadn’t yet reached my darkest side, I’m neither envying them nor rejoicing at their misfortune but I’m watching the theories’ applications… those theories which I believed in and which were capable of disappointing me too many times over the past five years.. But it is not the time to talk about those theories now, I’d talk about this later in greater detail...So I’m witnessing maybe for the first time, the right application of one theory we need the most … justice!!
• Why each time I see this strange look in your eyes?? You are asking too many questions that you know their absolute right answers… I’m brave enough to tell you yes, that’s right…nice conclusion…unfortunately, you are right, with no proud… don’t doubt it anymore because those questions torture me a lot… I agree upon whatever conclusions you made except for the mind that you did your best to save it, because you did nothing… either wrong or right… it is still nothing!!...
  But you know, I’d remain speechless…
  You and I had a mutual thinking at the very beginning and at the end…” bel mastra”
  You and I know that it was a hurricane for me and a useless hassle for you…
  so Never Mind… just Forget about it
  You and I chose not to talk about anything, at the end speechless...let it go and it will, as many other things did… so Never Mind… just Forget about it
  You and I know well that the coming won’t be in any case brighter than or even as bright as the past… so Never Mind… just Forget about it
  You and I know that each one of us would remain a nice exception in the other’s life….
  so Never Mind… just Forget about it
  There were only two differences:
  - For me, it is not an accumulated experience and memories chain…I had made a deep freeze after the mail I sent you last January… after this mail, I’ve no memory, no quote, no feelings… just a memory about a faded smile, a faded face and a faded era which belongs to no more than me…
  For you, it’s a friend whom you think had worn a wooden mask and gone away, though this friend is there and you did nothing to take off his wooden mask with a pretention of a total ignorance of the actual reasons for this shift…
  - For me, it began with:
  " عندى ثقة فيك...عندى أمل فيك...بيكفى؟ شو بدك ..إنه يعنى أموت فيك؟؟"
  And it ended with:
  "كيفك إنت؟؟"
  For you, it began with:
  "إيديا فى جيوبى وقلبى طرب..سارح فى غربة بس مش مغترب...وحدى لكن ونسان وماشى كده..ببتعد معرفش أوباقترب"
  And it ended with
  "وأنا برده بأقول كان مالك نظراتك مش طبيعية...تشوفينى يتغير حالك وأتاريكى........."
• I remembered Meroo’s quote:” I wonder, how shall she appear so well, so strong, with her full make-up, colored dress and big smile… while they broke up two days ago!!!”
  Dear Meroo, what I couldn’t tell when you said it, is that neither Wael Gassar in “youm zefafek”, nor Khaled Aggag in “as’ab hob” were representing the black fantasy, instead they were delivering a narrow side of the tough real world.

Final quote, it may be a rectangular earth, but we are all standing and viewing only a very limited circular area, where some of us are standing side-by-side, others are standing back-to-back, but only very few persons whom are brave enough to stand face-to-face…

I liked this excerpt of prose for Abd El-Rahman Al Abnoudy:

"رميت نفسك فى حضن ... سقاك الحضن حزن ...حتى فى أحضان الحبايب.. تلاقى الشوك ياقلبى"

Question of all eras

Last week I’d attended a nice wedding of one of my colleagues…actually I’ve tried to blog about it before, but I delayed this entry though I was so afraid to lose the whole idea as what happened many times before because I believe that the first shot is always the best shot…but this time, the delay was for my benefit… the idea now is more complete in my mind and I guess today is the suitable time to write about it…

I’m not going to go on the details of the wedding, but I prefer to pass by in a glance to get directly into the moral of this entry… but I won’t deny that in spite of being there without my gang- the TopGirlsGroup gang, actually according to the very latest updates; they absolutely deserve the title gang: D- , and in spite of the cycle of sorrows, conflicts, fears and sadness which is getting narrower day by day, that wedding amazingly succeeded on getting me out of the mood, I enjoyed my time there though I hadn’t spent more than 2 hours, and I was very excited… though I began nowadays to feel that I’m getting older when I attend weddings despite being only 22 years old… this feeling is neither caused by the fact that I’m not engaged nor it is caused by the fact that I’m totally a loser at the emotional side… rather it is caused by the feeling that girls of my age are going to take over the responsibilities of the adults… I’d talk about this feeling in a greater detail soon…

The fact that triggered my thoughts that night was the groom’s age – bypassing his appearance, though for me it is an important measurement, but I believe in the famous saying: " لولا إختلاف الأذواق لبارت السلع "

I’m nearly to swear that the groom is in his 40s, though she has lied to me telling that he is about 27, while her friends in the wedding said that he is 32 years old, but I can’t deny what I had seen with my eyes!!

Let’s go out of his hassle to the important part here, the immense number of thoughts and questions flew through my mind that night…

bypassing the economical factors (from her side, though it is possible) what would be the motives for any girl to agree upon such marriage proposal???

She is only a 22 virgin whom hadn’t been married before… so her possibilities aren’t so few….so discard this possible reason….

is it right that only old men are the only ones now whom are capable earning a living and leading a family toward the future?? Ok supposing this is right, there is something to regard here… she hadn’t get enough share of life experiences to get to this mind which needs too much courage of a girl to accept…

can it be love? Sorry but this is a very disgusting idea for me to consider…to think about a crippled love between a 22- years old girl and a 40- years old man, it shall be some sort of parental love!!!

I know that many researches emphasized that a woman’s mind gets mature more earlier than a man’s mind by 2-3 years… so many people consider this a reasonable view to consider an engagement model of a man who is elder than the woman by 2-3 years would be a successful model from the view of decision making and leadership.. Though this is not always the case, we may find many successful models where both the man and the woman are of the same age… More, there are some models where the man is so brilliant than his woman though he is younger than her…so there is no rule concerning relations…

but to have a time distance of more than 18 years, what kind of sick engagement is this??

Is it the man who is getting more selfish day-by-day??

Mom has a model which I see it as unjust in some of its dimensions… she always keeps on telling me that:

• Men whom are about 25-28 years prefer to propose to marry from girls whom are 20-23 years
• Men whom are about 29-35 years prefer to propose to marry from girls whom are 24-26 years
• Men whom are about (35-…) years prefer to propose to marry from girls whom are 26-30 years
• Men whom are about (35-…) years, and divorced or are widowers prefer to propose to marry from girls whom are 30-35 years

This is what I call “the greedy search model” …

who had delegated those unfair rights to men? The oldest can propose simply to the youngest… unless he is in love with one of his age, he can dare easily to go and ask her to marry him…

Who had denied a girl in the middle of the 30s of her age to marry to someone of her age??

Oh, I’d forgotten that we are reactors, no more…

I’d forgotten that we have stated in the minds of our community that the girl who is in her 20s is doing nothing but waiting for the sought knight to come and set her free, and the girl in her 30s and hadn’t married yet has nothing to do in her life and she’d better lock her room door and not to show up to avoid the tough treatment and the cruel looks of the surrounding community…

We have stated this idiocy in the community’s mind and we are now suffering from the consequences and trying to change those minds

It is true and I completely agree upon the idea of the woman’s refined role in the construction of the civilized society which implies that her life as a woman would have preference over her professional life where she can achieve her ambition … her life as a woman begins when she finds her partner, she begins to take over her main tasks for which she was basically created… her two lives are parallel, but if there would be a conflict, she would have to choose which part she would sacrifice totally or partially in favor of the other life…. In most cases, she’d sacrifice her professional life because most women see that she can be more productive in her life as a woman, many persons would be affected by her love and her donations…

While we see a wide party of men view marriage as a secondary step, or to be more precise, they view marriage as a complementary part in life without which life would go… they don’t view it as the beginning of responsible life because many of them would have been started her responsible life once they begun to earn their livings on their own…

Some of them view marriage as the beginning of the nowhere to escape disturbance and hassle of life…. It is the beginning of giving up the self-centered life to delegate some authorities to some other people to access his classified areas and sometimes to tire him with more troubles…

It is a natural idea which I don’t resist because it embodies the magnificent natural ability of a female to give…

However and after all, the community insists on depriving itself of the continuous giving ability of a wide majority of it using this unfair ages-model!!