Customer Is King – The – R – Factor
Customer Is King – The – R – Factor
By Rajesh Menon
Isn t the computer like a faithful servant? Always doing whatever we tell it to do. Can we say that it reveres us? Pardon me for this hyperbole, but tell you what, wait for another 5 years, and you will definitely have a factor called R which will indicate the amount of submission that a computer complies to. I mean software to be more precise. Let s see how this will work out.
This unit, the hypothetical, soon to be real factor will work on the instructions that we feed into the software. Say we are building a relational database engine. This engine will consist of a parser/optimizer which will read the SQL Statements and break it up into smaller units of an execution plan. Now the user a.k.a. programmer (mostly) writes an SQL statement which creates execution plan 1 . Is there a one to one correspondence between the program and the execution plan? Sometimes, it may be. But if the optimizer finds that another execution is the preferred plan that we have set earlier (like say we are looking at fast code) it will generate plan 2 . This seems OK because we had set our fast preference.
Now imagine that we did not give any preference (we used default like Cost ) and the execution plan is not matching with the source. To give you an e.g. say the user wrote a sub-query. As per our engine, we translate sub-queries into joins. (One good thing about these features is that even rookie code gets translated to a workable solution) The execution plan automatically changes. We can tell the engine to use another preference forcibly, but sometimes it s better to leave it as is.
As software becomes more and more layered, we distance ourselves from the core. Now every software that comes out will have to indicate, how much reverence can we expect from it. A higher figure would indicate more loyalty and a lower figure would indicate that the machine is calling the shots. This R factor would be printed on the shrink-wrapped or downloadable version of the software, so you know what you can expect out of that well thought buy of yesterday.
You may be thinking that the R factor would be less prevalent in AI kind of software. In fact it may just be the opposite. An AI engine will automatically adjust to the reverence that you are seeking, so much so that you will feel the comfort (a placebo, at least) But mind you, the intervention of AI algorithm is strictly a Meta R factor, because it is simulated. This Meta R factor would indicate the extent to which an AI engine would go to achieve compliance with our needs.
Like we have TPC benchmarks, the above said factors would be rated along with, if I may add one more factor, say Safety or the S factor. This would be a measure of how vulnerable it is to external sabotage. A question in your mind may be This is a part of OS , to which I answer, the OS is just one another piece of software which will have it s own ratings. Applications / Databases/ Utilities or what have you, are also vulnerable. An example : take Windows XP, its R factor may be say 92%, the Meta R factor would be 2% and Safety S factor would be 14% . Remember these are just assumed figures. But these numbers would give us a good idea about what we are stepping into unknowingly.
The concept of HAL the mission computer in 2001 A Space Odyssey , would be better understood, if we had these factors before launching it and the crew into a no man s territory (space., at least for now) We don t trust computers that pop s up a list of those who developed the software on the press of a combinatory key (Easter Eggs) or comes packaged with certain instructions that make the unknown user s experience a trip to remember.
Me as a user would like to have 100% of the software that I bought. Maybe, I don t need the source code, if I m a non technical end user. But then I guess the prices also have to come down, because I ve not opted for this. Yes you are right – SOA is my bet. The afore-mentioned factors also give me a double assurance that this software is the best bang for the buck.
Remember Customer is King , and as I have read in the history lessons in school :- we bow down before a King, in reverence.
Best,
guru30 (Rajesh Menon)
Guru30 is the nickname of Rajesh Menon, a veteran of the IT industry with 18 years of experience, co-author of a book on C language and published author. He writes on spirituality, management and technology. Either solo subjects or fusion of these streams. The author strongly believes that the real knowledge of the scriptures must be integrated with technology paradigms.
Rajesh Menon is also into music and poetry.
You may reach him on rajesh.menon@guru-30.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rajesh_Menon
http://EzineArticles.com/?Customer-Is-King—The—R—Factor&id=264323
Related post
Chess Rules — Do You Know How To Play?
...
Indie Games – Why You Should Play Them
...