A mini-rant about my profession…

I’ve just spent the last two days fighting a software problem at work, one that has kept me from making any progress on the task I was assigned. It wasn’t a problem with the program thatI was assigned to fix, it was a problem with the tools I was trying to use to find the problem in the program in the first place. The fact that the tools are also software, and the fact that the tools also have bugs has been causing far too much stress, mainly because it was so ultimately wasteful of time (and of my limited sanity!). As I drove home last night, after 10 utterly fruitless hours spent trying variation after variation of settings and configurations and watching them all fail to make any difference at all, I thought of ways of trying to describe to non-programmers why I was getting stressed. After all, surely software should be easy to do, and far less stressful than something physical like building a house. As I drove along, I realized a pretty good analogy in house-building.

Imagine trying to build a house, when you are limited to only the tools and supplies you have with you.

Imagine that all the tools you have to use, all the supplies you have to work with, were made with other shoddy tools.

Imagine that the tools work about 80 percent of the time. Your hammer’s head flies off the handle at odd times with no warning, your screwdriver’s handle comes off the shaft, your power drill bursts into flames. Always randomly, always without warning, and at least once a day. And you can’t replace them.

Imagine your saw is made of high-quality aircraft titanium, but it’s missing about 20% of its teeth, and is slightly warped.

Imagine you have to pour a concrete foundation for a 1200 square foot house, but you only have one 5 gallon bucket.

Imagine that the architect keeps bringing in changes every day, on things you’ve already managed to put together.

Imagine the person wanting the house insists that you put in PVC pipe, but you’re not allowed to cut or bend any of the pipe.

Imagine they also want a sophisticated air conditioner installed, but won’t tell you where, and won’t give you the installation instructions, and won’t give you the specialized parts to make it fit in and work with the power.

Imagine building a house this way, knowing you can only use what you have, even if you need more or better supplies and tools. This is what developing software is like in the 21st Century, and has been for the past 30 years of my career. We could have more robust tools, that are at least as dependable as a carpenter’s, we could have easily adaptable procedures that can handle changes to design, and we could build software that is more robust and less fragile.

We could, if there were enough people who cared, who were willing to see (and admit to) the problems, and who were willing to spend the effort in time and money to fix the problems. Unfortunately there are far too many people, both technical and management, who accept the status quo, each for their own reasons. Management is more concerned about the illusion of saving money, even though shoddy tools and the lack of good ones causes much more waste of time, which is really money after all.

Many technical people, on the other hand, don’t mind the difficulty that using poor tools entails, and often don’t even know that better ways are possible.

More on that in another rant.

Crowd helps autistic man sing the National Anthem

This is an autistic man who’s been chosen to sing the National Anthem at a ball game in Fenway Park, for “Disability Awareness Day,” but partway through he messes up the lyrics. He’s completely flustered, but the crowd in the stadium comes to his rescue by singing the right words along with him. To hear all the people filling the stadium with the Anthem, and to see the man’s reaction, this is why I can’t give up on America. As long as we have people like this crowd, we won’t fail.

Innocent couple about to lose their motel and future to law enforcement abuse

This is an unspeakable horror. A man and his family, who have never committed a crime and who own a motel are about to lose it all, because US Federal law enforcement is going to seize it and give the proceeds of its sale to local police.

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CATDAT-41 latest report on the Great East Japan Quake

Nearly 20,000 dead or missing, 60,000 still living in “temporary” shelters, and over 1500 children who lost parents or guardians.

The CATDAT-41 report by the Earthquake Report website spells out many details about the dead, the missing, the costs in money of the destruction, and the effects on Japan.

Letter from Pastor Yusef Nadarkhani

Since October 2009 Yusef Nadarkhani has been in Rasht prison in Iran.  He is sentenced to die for his crime: holding house-worship Christian services.  Even though he was never Muslim, had never made Islamic confession, he has been convicted of “apostasy”.  The Obama Administration wrote about as strong a letter as possible condemning the Iranian actions.  In this article is a translated copy of a letter from Nadarkhani to fellow Christians around the world.

http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2011/09/well-done-president-obama.html

Pray for him and his family.

Boy’s love for Morning Glories lives on long after his passing…

This is a nice story about a boy’s love of Morning Glories, and his mother’s love for him, which she spreads to the tsunami survivors through seeds from the flowers he grew just before he died, and which he never lived to see bloom.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/life_and_death/AJ2011092612223

Morning glories at Kamaishi temporary housing
Morning glory blossom, grown from seeds originally tended by a boy who died of leukemia in Tainai, Niigata Prefecture, blossom at a temporary housing for disaster victims in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture. (Shingo Kuzutani)

Surviving a tornado…

Incredible true story of the 24 people who survived the Joplin Missouri tornado of 2011 by taking shelter at a convenience store, in a makeshift storm cellar: the store’s 25 foot long, 7×8 foot beer cooler.

Incredible true story of the 24 people who survived the Joplin Missouri tornado of 2011 by taking shelter at a convenience store, in a makeshift storm cellar: the store’s 25 foot long, 7×8 foot beer cooler.
Continue reading “Surviving a tornado…”