Software development and crunch time; and more

Several software experts share their views on the software developers and crunch time, the impact of open source practices on computing education and increased use of computing. Ruben Ortega, an engineering director at Google reports that crunch time for software developers is a period prior to a major product breakthrough when team members are put in extra effort to get a product finished by a specific delivery date. Mark Guzdial, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology explains that when students develop toward being professionals, they frequently involve in a process that educators call legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). Students can get started in software development at a company by doing tasks that aren't directly about writing software, but are about the entire enterprise. Daniel Reed, vice president of Technology Strategy & Policy and the eXtreme Computing Group at Microsoft, reports that WIMP interfaces for human-computer interaction is routinely used and embedded computers enhance everyday objects.