Zen and the Art of Software Development

Coffee Meetings

2007-08-31T13:57:00.000+01:00

Communication is essential for a project to be successful. Unfortunately, most people interpret this need as an excuse to reduce the rain forests by the production of mountains of memo's, reports, newsletters, charts, drawings, and so on. There are always alternatives. There is always another way of doing things. What we did was to all have a coffee break together at 10:00 and 15:00 where we would all stop working and gather round to discuss issues, progress, solve problems, and generally complain. Nothing became bottled up since there was always an opportunity to say your piece and they were very informal, sort of an 'unstructured stumblethrough'. After a while I felt that my presence was no longer needed and so I only attended if asked. As the project progressed the meeting died off until we felt the need for them again.

The second time round for the coffee meetings was when we were starting work on the coding of a module the designer would 'talk' the rest of the project team through her design. This made sure that everyone was aware of what was happening and any design errors were highlighted.

Anagrams

2007-08-15T09:37:00.000+01:00

Of course, tannoy systems can be useful if used in ways to foster the ideas of teamwork and fun. Simon Bentley, the co-inventor of Mongle Fongle III (more of this later), was the subject of a different tannoy message every day for several
weeks each one an anagram of his name;

By Mine Not Les
Sly Teen In M.O.S.
Ben's Tely In Mi
Teeny In Sloms
Ben's Tiny Elmo
Been, Not Slimy M
Money B. Silent
Melons Be Tiny

Culminating in this piece de resistance of Tannoy art;

"Would SLIMY BENT ONE please contact reception."

P.S. What is the 'Owls' all about?

Tannoys

2007-06-26T19:22:00.000+01:00

Tom De Marco and Tim Lister in their book Peopleware attack the use of Tannoy announcements because they interrupt the work of , say 100 people, for the benefit of one person, I agree but....

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A TANNOY!

I worked in a company who thought it was more important to locate someone than not to disturb people while they were trying to work, which brings us to another law;;

THORPE'S LAW OF LOUD ANNOUNCEMENTS

The law states that the number of people disturbed by an announcement is inversely proportional to the seniority of the person being paged; that is, the person who causes the maximum disturbance is the janitor! Why not buy him a pager.

I solved the problem as it affected my team. One Saturday when we were working I took a screwdriver, wire cutters and a step ladder in to work (I could have asked the janitor for these items but no one could ever find him), took the loudspeaker that was in our area out of the ceiling, disconnected the wires and the replaced it to cheers from the rest of the team. No one, other than us, ever discovered that it had been disconnected, but we smiled every time we heard the muffled sounds of loudspeaker messages coming from other parts of the building. This the kind of guerrilla warfare that teams often engage in to get their own way.

Sweets

2007-06-23T15:17:00.000+01:00

A few years ago someone offered me a sweet; not that this is a rare occurrence, it is just that this was a particular type of liquorice sweet that I remembered from my childhood, I even remembered that it was called a 'Poor Ben' and I have subsequently learned that it is manufactured by Lion's of Cleckheaton, Yorkshire, in the U.K.

Having remembered the taste of 'Poor Bens' and found where to buy them I decided that I needed a ready supply, I therefore bought a large jar in which to put them, and I kept this on my desk.

A growing number of people used to come to see me with the only reason being to take some of my Poor Bens.

After having given a successful presentation in Geneva I arrived home to find that my wife had bought me a present; a large can of jelly beans!

Not just any old jelly beans! No, 'gourmet' jelly beans! At first I thought, ' I could put these in the jar with the Poor Bens', and then I found out how much there jelly beans cost. The next step was pretty obvious, I had to find some way of the jelly Beans becoming self financing. It did not take me long to find the answer; -' a jelly bean machine!'

And so, the 'Jelly Bean Machine on Terry's Desk was born!'

It did not take long for the fame of the 'Jelly Bean Machine on Terry's desk' to spread. Soon, there were queues of people lined up to put their money in the machine and become 'gourmet's'. Eventually, I tired of the queues and took one of my new customers to the sweet shop to examine the 'Jelly Bean Machines'. It was then that people realised that there were bigger machines to look at, there were bigger challenges to face!

And so it was that the Systems Department became the proud owner of a 30" tall jelly bean machine, together with lbs of Jelly beans, at a discounted price. And I regained the use of my desk!

Ties and Socks

2007-06-22T10:31:00.000+01:00

One day in the 1990’s one of the team came to work in a fairly bright and heavily patterned tie, although looking back it was pretty tame. On seeing the tie I commented that I would have to try to wear a brighter tie. I did, and so did the rest of the department, the ties became brighter and brighter, and more and more outrageous, here's a sample of what I mean;

The bright ties quickly became a badge of the team, and even today the team members are recognisable by their lack of sartorial elegance. Eventually, someone turned up with a pair of musical socks which played 'jingle bells'.

Computer Games

2007-06-18T23:22:00.000+01:00

During my Christmas holidays my brother-in-law brought a computer game he had been playing, but with which he had come to a dead end. The game in question was an adventure one with lots of puzzles which have to be solved and was called Kings Quest IV.

Looking back Kings Quest IV looks very dated, with pretty basic graphics, but what was important were the puzzles and the addictive nature of playing. I started playing the game, and was hooked! I took the game to work after the Christmas break (against the rules of course) and spent some time playing after work on an evening. As you would expect some of the other members of the team became interested in what I was upto. Before long four or five of us were all trying to complete the game, which we did after a few weeks. Once we had completed Kings Quest IV we rushed out and bought Kings Quest V.

Kings Quest V did have modern quality graphics, and sound, and was icon driven, and so on. But most importantly it had hundreds of puzzles to solve and the same addictive quality as its predecessor. Again four or five of us worked our way through the game on an evening over a period of many weeks.

So, four or five of our team played a computer game in an evening over a period of a few months ......... dot...dot...dot....... and so what! Well, as with many team building activities, the activity spills over into the rest of the people. Everyone became interested in the surreal conversations which would take place during the day, about whether you had found the fish in the barrel in the town square, and did you know that if you picked the fish up you could throw it at the bear who was trying to get the honey out of the beehive in the tree.

The Phantom

2007-06-18T15:48:00.000+01:00

During a particular development we had created a security system at the very beginning and it was thereafter included in every screen that was written. Of course, when it came to testing each screen it had to be set up on the security system, and with many screens coming up for testing every day this was a tedious job. As a shortcut a program was written which would add all the new screens together as it was run. And every time this program was run it displayed a different picture and message from the 'phantom'. We asked everyone in the team if they were the 'phantom' and everyone denied it, and so we checked the machine logs but it told us that the program had been amended on one of the testing terminals and we could not therefore pin the culprit down. In fact it took months of the phantom's appearances, and some detailed technical analysis before it became clear who was behind it.

As a footnote to the story of the 'phantom', the person who managed to make all those unauthorised changes to programs without getting caught eventually became a computer auditor - poachers becoming gamekeepers?

NFL

2007-06-14T07:30:00.000+01:00

I'm a big fan of American Football, and my 'local' team are the Philadelphia Eagles although as you can see from the following map this is stretching the term 'local' to its absolute limits;

I was once able to see the Eagles play at the American Bowl in London and after the game the quarterback, Randall Cunningham, walked past me - these people are pretty big aren't they?

What's the point behind all this American Football stuff? Well, on the first day of the project I brought in my Eagles souvenir ball and put it on my desk. I then explained to the team that they could throw the ball around the office but only after six o'clock when all the other staff had left. I actually thought that the fact the ball was there would be enough, but at one minute past six on that first day the ball was being thrown all around. In fact, I was sat at my desk in the middle of the office during this with the ball whizzing dangerously over my head. The ball throwing sessions carried on for a few months but the ball has since always had pride of place on my desk.

The Stylophone Episode

2007-05-29T23:13:00.000+01:00

Of course, the kind of 'extreme' group behaviour discussed here leads to 'extreme' individual behaviour. For example, a manager who was working for me at the time was once delighted at finding a Stylaphone for sale in a junk shop. For those of you who have never heard of a Stylaphone, here's an advert for one from the 1970's;
It looks strange, but wait until you have heard it! For a musical instrument it sounded like the groundhog's squeal coming through the world's cheapest and smallest loudspeaker. It was first of all used to entertain the rest of the department, and then used to play a tune on the telephone while people were holding, and then we talked about wiring it up to a 500 watt amplifier and playing rock'n'roll songs on it. We never did wire it up of course, but you get the most fun out of what you imagine rather than what you do. As a special treat to you, I did wire a Stylaphone up to a big amplifier, you cannot hear it, but I'm sure you can imagine what it looked like.

And then.....

We rigged up a 'wah wah' pedal between the Stylaphone and the amp and played 'the Star Spangled Banner' a la Hendrix!

Other Celebtration Opportunities

2007-05-29T15:47:00.000+01:00

When I talked about this in a presentation in Europe an American who was in the audience came to talk to me afterwards, she said that I had a cheek taking her national heritage in vain .... but that it was a good idea and she was going to do the same .... and good I tell her about some peculiar English holidays or celebrations. So, somewhere in Florida is a development team who celebrate, among other things, Guy Fawkes night on the 5th November every year! (Guy Fawkes was an English conspirator who, in 1605, was arrested along with a group of others for attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament using barrels of gunpowder in the cellars.)

I suspect that you could celebrate something from around the world on every single day of the year, of course the real trick is to celebrate only those events which have a ridiculous air about them, anyway, here are some to be going on with;

- the first business day in a new year is a holiday in Italy, UK, Ireland and Australia except for the state of Victoria. Why not in Victoria?
- 15 January is 'Adults' day in Japan.
- 26 January is 'Australia Day' in Australia!
- 15 March is the Anniversary of the Revolution of 1848 in Hungary.
- 4 April is Cold Food day in Korea.
- 15 September is Respect for the Aged Day in Japan.
- 27 September is the French Speaking Community Day in Belgium.
- 8 April is the Birthday of Buddha in Japan.
- 18 May is the Birthday of Buddha in China and Korea.
- 25 May is the Birthday of Buddha in Tibet, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.

Wait a minute, what is going on here? Who is this guy, and why does he have so many birthdays?

More on Groundhogs (by any other name)

2007-05-22T07:22:00.000+01:00

Bear in mind this was before the film Groundhog Day and we had never heard of a groundhog so we looked it up in the dictionary;

ground·hog also ground hog
play_w("G0282800")
(groundhôg, -hg)
n.
See woodchuck. See Regional Note at woodchuck.
hm();Sources=Sources 2;
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun
1.
groundhog - reddish brown North American marmot
Marmota monax, woodchuck
marmot - stocky coarse-furred burrowing rodent with a short bushy tail found throughout the northern hemisphere; hibernates in winter

We thought the 'see woodchuck' interesting as we had never heard of those either;

wood·chuck
play_w("W0209100")
(wdchk)
n.
A common burrowing rodent (Marmota monax) of northern and eastern North America, having a short-legged, heavy-set body and grizzled brownish fur. Also called groundhog; also called regionally whistle pig.
[By folk etymology, probably of New England Algonquian origin.]
Regional Note: The woodchuck goes by several names in the United States. The most famous of these is groundhog, under which name all the legends about the animal's hibernation have accrued. In the Appalachian Mountains the woodchuck is known as a whistle pig. The word woodchuck is probably a folk etymology of a New England Algonquian wordthat is, English-speaking settlers "translated" the Indian word into a compound of two words that made sense to them in light of the animal's habitat.

Groundhog Day

2007-05-18T15:39:00.000+01:00

In another example of celebrating, one of the people in the team had been sent an American calendar which every day would normally give you some very sombre advice on how to conduct your life, and these would be eagerly awaited by the rest of the group as they were read out each day. What this calendar also gave us was the opportunity to celebrate some American events such as Presidents Day and .........

Celebrations!

2007-05-17T07:31:00.000+01:00

An important part of team building is the liberal use of celebrations. We would use any excuse whatsoever in order to celebrate. For example we would celebrate every time we had completed the coding of another fifty screens. We tried many different ways of celebrating, we would have a drink, or a meal, or a quiz, or play indoor cricket, or ten pin bowling. The bowling is worth exploring;

The first time we went as a team for a celebratory bowling game we had two games each and then a burger and fries. Whilst we were eating and laughing at some of the incredible ineptitude we had just witnessed we were approached by a bowling team who were playing in a league match. Their opponents had not turned up and although they would win simply by playing on their own they did not want to play against an empty lane. It was for this reason that six of us acted as 'stand-ins' for the missing team. We lost of course but had a great time, especially as we were playing under our 'assumed' names of the missing players. Great cheers went up as we played with chants being taken by our supporters for the names that were showing on the computer screen of the scoring system. Unbelievably, we were asked if we would like to enter a team in the local bowling league, which we did.

War Games

2007-05-16T10:17:00.000+01:00

I risk being politically incorrect, or is it itcorrect, yet again. One of the ways we have 'celebrated' is by having a war game. The first time I tried this was outdoors with paint balls and on this occasion my ex-wife joined me (she wasn’t ‘ex’ at the time) and managed to embarrass me, and the team she was on, by deciding that the paint balls hurt so much that when one of the opposing team pointed their gun at her she would immediately surrender!

On another occasion we played indoors (without my wife needless to say) using laser guns. On this occasion we had to decide how we were going to split up the teams. Eventually we decided that we would have a 'Yorkshire versus The Rest Of The World' match (Yorkshire is on of the Counties of England, it fact it is the largest County in England). An interesting result of this particular war game was that when we analysed the results we found that not only had I been a favourite target with the opposition but I had also been shot in the back by members of my own side, teamwork indeed!

PS For those of you who dont know where Yorkshire is - see below;

Even in your worst nightmares!

2007-05-15T09:46:00.000+01:00

Good teams can survive almost any amount of management's incompetence and will probably make their feeling known at some point. Indeed, the only way to stop a really dedicated team from being successful is to either disband them or stop the project altogether. Here is an example I once saw; The team in question were itching to get on with their job but felt they were being hampered by their bosses, and in particular a great deal of unnecessary politicking. They therefore an indicator on the wall with these titles;

CHANGE PLATFORM
CHANGE LANGUAGE
CHANGE LOCATION
CHANGE SUPPLIER
CHANGE METHODOLOGY
CHANGE SPECIFICATION

They would spin an arrow on a regular basis and the message quickly went round that they wanted to get on with the job if only people would stop changing the rules of the game.

Can we help build teams?

2007-05-14T13:55:00.000+01:00

There is a problem with building teams, or even waiting for teams to build themselves. The problem is that it takes quite a lot of time and luck in order for a team to form. So, is it possible to help the process of building teams? Is it possible not to have to rely so much on the time and luck that it normally takes?

Yes it is!

You can help the process of creating a team by making sure they have the opportunity to have some fun.

Work should be more fun than having fun

Work should be fun. There is no reason for it not to be, especially systems development which can be as near to pure fun as it is possible to get without breaking the law.
Of course, you will always get the good old insecure management response that we are paying these people to work and not to have fun. When you hear this said then point out that when people are having fun they work - better, harder, and for longer.
If the team has fun, if the team can laugh together, then they will be having those shared experiences that I said were one of the key characteristics of teams. So, how can you make sure the team has fun? Remember, you are building something unique so it cannot be something you can 'buy' of off a shelf. Try to find the humour in everything that happens, you can do this by exaggerating everyday events, and by taking things to their absolute extreme. What do I mean? The best way of understanding what I mean is to look at some examples of the things I have either done or have seen other people do.

Naming Convention

A very simple idea that we used in building teams is to put the team members names through as many spelling checkers as possible. You will not find a funny name for everyone but you may well find one or two interesting ones. For example;

Nuclear Carrot
and
Terrible Torpedo (that's me by the way)

The best results are obtained by the use of the older and poorer examples of spelling checkers, but it is worth a try.

Elitism?

2007-04-28T08:14:00.000+01:00

Once a team has come together and has started to be successful it will quickly built up an elitist attitude. It will have a supreme believe in its own ability as a team and will develop a view that it is superior to everyone else around. It will challenge authority, the accepted ways of doing things, and almost everything else. This is why teams are frowned upon, they are very, very difficult to mange.

The Uniqueness of Teams

2007-04-10T20:49:00.000+01:00

Teams are always unique. The fact they are always unique is one of the things that makes them a team. if no uniqueness exists then they are not really a 'team' simply a group of people who are called, or call themselves, a team. What do I mean? They will have their own private jokes and ways of looking at things. They will have a 'style' of working that is different to the way others do the same tasks and which cannot be replicated in as successful a manner by others. This uniqueness will go outside the work environment and cover music, TV, films, and all the other aspects of everyday life that are also part of normal working conversations.

Trust

2007-03-28T08:34:00.000+01:00

Teams will have a mutual trust of each other. You will know that these people will not let you down, that you can rely on the answer to a question, that you know that if someone has said they will do something then they most probably will. Now it is not that all of a sudden individuals become super reliable and efficient once they become a real team member. No, that is not the case, but it is true that people perform better within the context of a team than they do outside of one. So, they are more reliable and more to be trusted than they would otherwise be.

Testing, Testing, Testing!

2007-03-20T16:36:00.000Z

I have always believe in testing applicants for jobs in Systems, not as a definitive way of knowing whether someone should or should not be employed, but merely as an aide to the decision making process.

As part of the testing I would include psychometric tests to try to understand the physiological makeup of the individual and make an attempt at understanding how he or she would fit it with the rest of us. I believe that more work could be done in helping to understand how psychometric testing could be used to ensure maximum team compatibility. I have used Myers Briggs, Belbin Types, DISC, 16PF, etc. But, like I say these can't make decisions for you, just give you something more to consider.

The Right Stuff

2007-02-28T09:25:00.001Z

To have any chance whatsoever of establishing themselves as a team, a group must share a set of reasonably common objectives. I do not mean the kind of 'formal' objectives that we are becoming so hung up on these days, but they want to 'do' the same things, that they are headed in the same general direction. One of the tricks in achieving this commonality is picking the 'right' people. Some people, for example, do not want to take risks and do 'new` things.

The Right Stuff

2007-02-28T09:25:00.000Z

What are teams like?

2007-02-27T09:05:00.000Z

In order to better understand teamwork it is worth considering some of the things that make teams or that demonstrate how teams react;

The most important thing about any team is that its members will have been through things together, shared experiences. It is these shared experiences which truly bond all the members of a team to each other. It is the thing that separates the team from others around them. It is the reason that successful teams typically come together in times of adversity, that they as a group will have faced common struggles of some kind. Think back over your own experiences and you will find that the times when you faced most difficulties was the time when you felt most part of a team.

Teamwork

2007-01-30T11:36:00.000Z

"And we'll have fun, fun, fun" - The Beach Boys

How do you get the most from a group of people?

Answer: TEAMWORK

But, the real question is ........

" how do you build a team?"

" how do you bring together a group of people and make them into a team?"

This is not what we do!

Teamwork is not something we do well. Most of the time it is not even something we do at all. Our entire culture is based on not building teams rather than building them. Even when we play team games we are constantly trying to pick out individuals rather than understanding that it may be the 'chemistry' of the team that makes them successful rather than the specific skills of individuals within the group.

The Hardest Thing

2007-01-16T14:19:00.000Z

Most people can use new techniques, and can tackle major tasks .... once they have got started. The hardest part is always getting started, the fist interview, the first data flow diagram, the first objects to be defined, the first screen to be designed, the first report, the first code to be written, and so on. People seem to need helping over these psychological hurdles, recognise this from the outset and either help people get over these problems personally, or have a team work on them, or hire someone from outside to help. Nothing is more daunting than a blank piece of paper!

Will This Project Be Successful?

2007-01-10T17:39:00.000Z

I am sometimes asked what it is that makes developments successful, why do some work and some not, and more specifically, 'will this one work?' The answer that people are looking for is a particular language, or methodology, or technique, or technology. Of course, the answer has nothing to do with any of these things; it can be summed up in one of those clichés I have criticised earlier;

'Nothing breeds success like success!'

The biggest predictor to a successful project is that the project teams have previously been successful. Success gives confidence; it means that the team will have gone through a number of 'pain barriers' that could stop others. They will be willing to try new things; object orientation or client server, they will have some idea what to expect, they will know that some things will go wrong, that the specification will change, that the users will be difficult, that IT management will be unreasonable, etc., etc., etc.

'Nothing breeds failure like failure!'

......and what would be a predictor to failure? Well, if an IT department or a development team had a number of attempts at developing systems, but for whatever reasons had not completed any of them, then their chances of success will be lower. They will lack the necessary confidence and experience

It's Never Too Late!

2007-01-08T15:12:00.000Z

It's never too late to what?

It is never, never, NEVER too late to scrap what you have done and start again. In fact, you will almost always have to redo some parts of any major project. It is also possible to predict what you will scrap, it will be one of the very early parts. Does knowing that you will have to go back and do some of the early work again help in any way? Yes, it does? There are a number of reasons why this knowledge can be useful;

If you are expecting it to happen you may not compound the error by trying to 'make do', or ignore it, or blame the user, programmer, language, technology, etc. The quicker you deal with the problem once it becomes apparent, the better.

Knowing that this is normal should stop the team from feeling guilty or losing confidence. You should treat the reworking of module(s) as part of the job.

Evolutionary

2006-12-18T10:56:00.000Z

Of course some of the good ideas, the wild cats, will not take off. Some of our star products will be replaced by other new ones. It may be decided not to carry on milking one of the more mature products but to replace it instead. What all this means is that it is quite likely for a product, particularly in today's market, not to follow the normal life cycle but to be dropped at and earlier stage.

Contrast the classical cost curve with that in the second graph. Here the costs of developing the system are staggered over time. This stepped approach is beneficial in that it gives a faster initial implementation and also minimises any potential losses should the product be dropped.

It is all very well showing fancy diagrams and applying the terminology of management consultants. But how, in reality , can all these concepts be used in today's systems development environment?

More windows

2006-12-05T18:26:00.000Z

In the following diagram points on the time axis represent the potential delivery dates of the required computer system. The value curve indicates the total value which the system would produce if delivered within a particular time scale. As can be seen, the longer it takes to actually deliver a working system, the shorter the life span (as determined by the product's window of opportunity) and thus the less overall value which can be accrued.

Now we can see that there are very real constraints on the system, if we do not deliver within the 'window' then there is no point in continuing. It is not a question of pushing systems to do the impossible, but more a case of pushing systems to make the correct decisions about design.
The cost curve on the graph indicates how the cost of development rises as the time taken to deliver increases. This increased cost is a result of the additional payment of salaries, accommodation, overheads, hardware resource, etc. The earlier a system is delivered then the greater the difference between development cost and the overall value, that difference indicates the total benefit of the system.

One important aspect which should be noted when considering the costs value curves of the systems, is that part of the graph to the right of where the two curves cross. It is at this point that systems will not recoup the development cost during their lifetime, a situation which has unfortunately been all too common in the past. The worst offenders in this area are those systems which are developed and enhanced to aid functions in the dog stage of their life, or alternatively support activities such as personnel etc.

How can we use the ideas which we have discussed (on product life cycles, ranges of options, and cost/benefit curves) together in a way which will enable IT departments to provide the most appropriate solutions? Well, one important fact to be noted is that we could overlay our range of options onto the cost value graph. What this overlaying shows is that the perfect solution is also the most expensive , the one which would take the longest time to implement and therefore the one which will have the smallest overall benefit ( if it manages to stay on the positive side of the equation at all).
If, in addition to the options and cost values, we now consider the product life cycle - we can begin to see the way in which all the concepts discussed can come together in a coherent form. The first of the diagrams which follows shows how the classical product life cycle will typically evolve with time as measured by the vertical axis. Onto this life cycle we have overlaid the costs as they are typically applied. In this case a perfect or near perfect solution has been sought, resulting in a long delay before possible 'stardom' can be reached. In addition to the time delay, there is also the fact that the full cost of the system has to be borne.

Windows of Opportunity

2006-11-17T15:07:00.000Z

Let us now examine the financial implications of producing, and using, computer systems. In the example which we are concerned with some form of computer system is required to support a new or enhanced product or service. Something which needs to be considered is that for any given 'product' there exists a fixed'window of opportunity' during which it can exist, this window is limited by such things as government legislation, competitive activity, market pressures, etc.

A Perfect 10?

2006-10-30T14:27:00.000Z

As the use of technology shifted from support of mature products to the delivery of new ones. It is also moved from a cost cutting position to one of profit generation. It is appropriate, because of this shift in emphasis, to examine some basic concepts which can help ensure that IT can maximise its contribution.

There are usually a wide range of options available when examining how a computer system can assist the organisation. This range of options can be visualised as points on a scale which ranges from a manual system through to the most comprehensive and complete system possible.

A problem which has to be faced is that almost everyone, users and IT staff alike are drawn to the most complex solution. It is perfectly natural to aim for this type of solution, indeed, there are some situations when there are no alternatives.

The real question is whether the 'perfect' solution is something which should be viewed as the first system to be delivered, or more realistically, viewed as something which should be aimed at, but delivered in more simple guises over a period. If it is accepted that the 'perfect' solution is something that should be worked towards, then the way it can be achieved is by going through a series of evolution's. This evolutionary process has considerable business benefits and, as we shall see later, matches the product life cycle approach.

Cows?

2006-10-03T15:57:00.000+01:00

The next area where IT was used, again in a cost cutting role, was in that of well established cash cows where the low market growth left cost reduction as the only way of increasing profits. Increasingly, however new products and services require computer systems from their inception through to potential stardom.

Who let the dogs out!

2006-10-01T16:56:00.000+01:00

Although not always followed, the classical product life cycle starts with 'wild cats' , hopefully some of these will take off and become 'stars'. These 'stars' will eventually fade and become 'cash cows' , and if the cows are not careful the may end up as dogs.

One of the historical fact of IT life is that it was seen as a convenient way of cutting costs, and which of our matrix boxes provides the prime candidate for cost cutting? The dogs! Thus it was that the early days of IT were concerned with payroll systems, ledger systems etc.

Boston Matrix

2006-09-18T17:36:00.000+01:00

High Growth/Low Share

These combinations are described as 'wild cats', or alternatively 'problem children' or 'question marks'. This is the area where new products start out with a small share of a growing market. However, not all of these good ideas will survive and the key management decision is whether investment should be continued because of high potential or be cut back because their market share is too low to survive.

High Growth/High Share

Products in this quadrant are described as 'stars' , representing successful high profit generating parts of the business. The fact that the market is growing justifies continued investment in these parts of the business and the profits generated can be funnelled either back into these profits or into new 'wild cats' which are the potential 'stars' of the future.

Low Growth/High Share

These products give rise to what are termed 'cash cows' (or falling stars!) from which steady profits can be milked, but because of the static market the money which they generate should be invested elsewhere.

Low Growth/Low Share

These products are termed 'dogs' (or falling cows?) and are typified by long established products providing very little return and thus should have investment capital removed from them. This is also the category within which it is reasonable to place those facilities which normally provide support to other parts of the organisation but do not help generate profits.

The End of the World?

2006-09-11T19:57:00.000+01:00

I have just had a look at my blog as I had forgoten what I put on last time and the number of hits was 6666! Presumably this means the world will end shortly so I'm off to do something I'll regret.

Matching systems to the business

2006-09-11T12:55:00.000+01:00

First, examine the stages through which a product, a car, a financial package, a pop song, an operating system, a credit card, goes through during its life, and yes they do have lives!. The best way of looking at this is by the four cell matrix introduced by the Boston Consultancy Group, The Boston Matrix.

The Great Time Machine Myth

2006-09-05T16:18:00.000+01:00

Another of the great ills of systems development is the idea that a system can be 'designed'.

Of course systems can be designed.

But .... they can only be designed to cater for the demands as the stand at that particular point in time!

In other words - designs are not static - they have a time dimension, a topic rarely addressed.

Another example of zen irony is the IT phrase 'real time systems' when we have no concept of how it is impossible to 'freeze' specifications, designs or systems.

The Tyranny of Perfection

2006-09-02T18:37:00.000+01:00

The supreme irony of the situation is that many of the ills which currently beset our industry are brought about , not by any reluctance to provide solutions or to take on board the wishes of other departments. On the contrary, it is more an over willingness to provide , not just 'any old' solution , but the ultimate, the most perfect computer based solution in the world! The reasons for this approach, and the problems which can arise will become apparent as we examine the life-cycle of products and the historical background of how systems have been applied to parts of the life cycles.

Strategic Planning and Jam

2006-08-31T09:48:00.000+01:00

Whilst IT strategic planning has become more and more the way forward, with more and more advice on how to do it, there remains one area within most organisations which constantly fails to deliver its promised potential.

The big problem is how do you get from a strategy to delivered systems? Well, you will get lots of advice on how to build large, complex strategies covering every aspect of the organisations IT from people to networks. Problem is these strategies are never implemented. They are not implemented because of a lack of commitment, or because they are wrong, or that the technologies or skills are not there. No, it is simply that reality tends to intrude, and all these strategies tend to take five to seven years to implement. 'But what about delivering something useful today?' is the cry from the top, 'you have been promising jam tomorrow for the last twenty years', 'when are we going to see some return on our investment in you?'

Weak Joke Koan

2006-08-27T09:52:00.000+01:00

How many programmes does it take to change a light bulb?

None, it's a hardware problem.

Productivity?

2006-08-27T09:47:00.000+01:00

"You aint seen nothin yet" - Bachman Turner Overdrive

Let’s be clear, the path to real, genuine productivity is by the use of teamwork, and teamwork will be covered later in this blog. So I suppose that's the end of this entry;

THE END

But in order to understand why you should be so enthusiastic about the use of teams you have to understand why productivity is so important, how it fits in with the rest of the organisation, and how there are some ways of organising your work that are more likely to achieve it than others.

First of all a basic question; what is the most important aspect of building, or developing, systems?

The answer is;

PEOPLE

…and it is definitely not;

THINGS

This is very important, so let us dwell on it a minute or two. By 'people' I mean you, and me, and the Users, and the system administrators, and so on. By 'things' I mean hardware, systems software, tools, methodologies, concepts, technology, consultants, and all the other stuff that you can go out and buy off the shelf.

Another way of putting this is by saying that the most important aspect of developing systems is;

SOCIOLOGY

and not

TECHNOLOGY

Thorpe's Third Rule of Estimating

2006-08-17T16:57:00.000+01:00

IT IS ALWAYS 2.7 TIMES BIGGER THAN YOUR MANAGER THINKS.

Of course you could always use the Zen estimating method; 'It takes as long as it takes!'

Thorpe's Second Rule of Estimating

2006-08-13T15:43:00.000+01:00

IT IS EITHER 11.6 TIMES BIGGER OR 1/11.6 TIMES SMALLER THAN THE USER THINKS.

Unfortunately, they underestimate 11.6 times more than they overestimate, but nonetheless for 8.67% of the time you can impress users. By the way the 11.6 is an average, the more senior the user the more he will underestimate the task to the point where I had a Chief Executive who was convinced that anything could be achieved with 'only one line of code'. Another strange aspect of the users perception is that it cannot be improved by any amount of training.

Thorpe's First Rule of Estimating

2006-08-08T18:06:00.000+01:00

IT IS ALWAYS, ALWAYS BIGGER THAN YOU THOUGHT.

Do not be fooled, even if you are a world expert estimator complete with COCOCOBANA and electric fan, even if you have a full set of past metrics and a record which says you are normally within 5% accuracy, deep down you still feel it should not take as long as the figure you have just come up with.

Computer Aided Scientific Wet Finger In The Air

2006-08-07T18:51:00.000+01:00

CASWFITA really does have some basis in reality. The main aid a computer can give you when it comes to estimating is in recording previous estimates together with the actual time taken. The thing is it is no good simply asking programmers nicely if they would awfully recording these details? No chance.

No, you have to create an environment where estimating, developing, testing, and moving to a live environment are all integrated. Not an easy thing to ask for but it has been done.

Pseudo Scientific Wet Finger in The Air

2006-08-06T13:48:00.000+01:00

Beware of some of the aids to estimating that you may be offered, what I would describe the PSWFITA estimating techniques, some of them only actual work after you finished the project, or so far into the project that they are of little use, or mean that significant extra work is involved in performing the required task.

Having got this far with our estimating acronyms we can follow one of the few rules for building newer, bigger, and better acronyms. Take your acronym and add 'CA',for computer aided, to the front of it.

A particularly attractive acronym in this area is Barry Boem's Cost Control Model or COCOMO which has been incorporated into a number of software products. What I've always wanted to do is to go one step further than COCOMO and come up

with an estimating model called COCOCOBANA, but I have so far failed to come up with something sensible it can stand for.... suggestions on a postcard addressed to Terence Thorpe.....

Converstions with a Mental Midget

2006-08-02T08:43:00.000+01:00

One of the ways of measuring the size of systems is by the use of Function Point Analysis (FPA), it is particularly useful because it can be used relatively early in the development process and is language independent. I have used FPA as a tool in measuring productivity. However, there are two versions of FPA, FPA I and FPA II. I was explaining to a 'Methodologist' about some of the productivity we had achieved in a major project which was an order of magnitude better than what was normally achieved. All this particular 'propeller head' could comment was that I had used FPA version I and this had now been superseded. Frankly I did not care if I was measuring the system size in Widgets Per Square Inch (WPSI), it was the relative performance of the team that was really important. He had totally lost the point of the exercise! No measure of system size or productivity can be very accurate there are just too many variables, what FPA gave me was a 'rule of thumb' measurement.

Scientific Wet Finger In The Air

2006-07-31T09:08:00.000+01:00

As the study of estimating continued many new methods of estimating were born, these I would call the SWFITA estimating techniques. An alternative approach to this would be to wet your finger using a pipette and then holding it up in front of an electronic fan.

Wet Finger in The Air

2006-07-27T17:12:00.000+01:00

Where were we, ah I remember, the dawn of estimating. Of course sticking your finger in the air could not continue as the defacto standard.

Have you noticed how Latin is used to say very unpleasant things or downright lies.. how many of you know Latin... oh, as many as that.

Anyway a "defacto" standard is no standard at all.

The next logical step was to wet the finger, not with water, but with experience! So, now we have WFITA!

Favorite Acronym of All Time

2006-07-23T22:43:00.000+01:00

But before this interrupt has to come to an end I have to give you my all time favourite acronym. To fully understand its significance you have to have worked along side sales staff who sold software development. The story goes like this, the salesman has explained what the client wants, and you've explained the potential problems and how much more work would have to be done before any agreement could be reached. The salesman has then gone back to the client and uttered those immortal words;

NO PROBLEM!

and then when he gives you the specification you stamp on it;

YCKYAGYOYON!

"You Can Kiss Your Ass Good-bye, You're On Your Own Now!

Apocolypse

2006-07-16T18:34:00.000+01:00

Most acronyms are three letters long, or TLA's, and even the Four Letter Acronym's are described by a TLA (FLA!). In fact one of my old favourite FLA's is OOPS, which I've always associated as the thing you say when you've just made a mistake (!) and as the phonetic version of the TV comedy programme Whoops Apocalypse .... OOPS Apocalypse? And the Object Management Group, OMG, sounds like an Electrosynth pop group from the 80's.

Acronyms

2006-07-03T15:59:00.000+01:00

And yea, the first acronym was born, and it was good, and it was the

'FITA estimate'

««««

Acronym's

Someone once showed me how to get a 150 slide, two hour presentation down to one slide given in less than three minutes. Why would you want to do that you may well be well be asking. Well if you've ever sat through the average 150 slide, two hour, presentation you would understand why. But on top of the boredom factor lies a much more scientific reason, tests by the US Navy have shown that the average period for concentration is 5 minutes. Imagine what the time scale would be for a busy executive, or the Typical Executive Attention Time (TEAT), that's right .... 3 minutes ... the time it takes to boil an egg!

So how do get such a dramatic reduction? You do it by using acronym's of course!

The History of Software Estimating

2006-07-01T15:34:00.000+01:00

The history of estimating is littered with ruined careers, blood on the walls, and acronyms. It all revolves around that pointing finger shown earlier, because in the beginning was the word, and the word was;

'you may as well stick your Finger In The Air!'

Estimating

2006-06-22T18:19:00.000+01:00

"How long" - Ace

If software development were to be described as an 'art' and not a 'science' then estimating would be 'the black art'. In fact, even if systems development is a science the estimating could still be described as 'the black art!'

How Do You Do It?

The best demonstration of how to estimate I have ever seen was where the Systems Development Manager put on one of those huge great foam hands with a pointing finger. He then pointed at one of his staff and yelled, 'Hey, you, how long will it take to do this, its up to you, and you better get it right because I'm gonna check up on you!' Now this may not seem very scientific but lets understand some of the principles behind it;

1. Have the estimating done by someone who knows the language, business area, system involved, etc.

2. Make it clear that those giving them will have to stand by the estimates they give.

3. Do not interfere with the estimate once given without the 'giver's' agreement.

4. Create metrics to track the effectiveness of estimates that have been given.

It can be surprising the thought and experience that can lay behind a seemingly simple statement. By the way, the individual with the foam hand produced very accurate estimates and could tell you by how much people were out and how accuracy varied with size.

Downsizing!

2006-06-15T12:45:00.000+01:00

"Down, down, deeper and down" - Status Quo

There seems to be a little confusion over exactly what kind of 'sizing' we are dealing with since we have also had;

upsizing - we wanted to make it smaller but it just got bigger!

samesizing - seems OK to me! lets do nothing!

wrongsizing - who sold you this?

rightsizing - this looks wrong to me!

Let us have a definition of downsizing (or right, or same, or ..etc.) . It sometimes means;
'replacing one large thing with lots of small things'.

Koanic Words of Wisdom

2006-06-12T13:19:00.000+01:00

I spent some time in a software development plant and was confused as to how it was run. It seemed to me that there were no set working hours at all with some people working all through the night, others going home after a few hours, nobody arrived at 9:00 and left at 5:00 or later (except me of course, I had not yet discovered many of life's truth's). So I asked the man who ran this place "what are the rules?"

He replied with a phrase that I will never forget, and which I believe sums up the right attitude of a software developer, he said "there is only one rule here, and that is you are not allowed to say that it cannot be done. You can say that you cannot do it. But remember, everything is possible".

This same site had a wine cellar for posh lunches with visitors. They had written a system to control the stock in the cellar and to help make selections. So you would type in the kind of food you were having and the number of people and the system would choose a selection of wines for you. The thing that amazed me was the quantities it was programmed to select, it appeared to select about one bottle per person - for lunch?

A Multimedia Interlude

2006-05-29T10:08:00.000+01:00

As I said earlier, this blog is based on a presentation that relied heavily on the use of multimedia, and every now and then I will try to give an insight into the 'live' show. At this point in the proceedings I would put up the following slide;

This shows how the Gartner Group views the topology of client server systems. As you can see the model splits applications into presentation, etc. Which is all very well, all very sensible.

But.

I had seen this slide fifty times with fifty different explanations from fifty different marketeers. So, to make a point I used a piece of fun software called Gunmouse and fired blanks at the screen whilst my assistant (the lovely Bob (Richards)!) clicked his mouse and a few seconds later this was the result;

By the way, the blood from the bullet holes ran down the slide.

Star Wars

2006-05-21T16:36:00.000+01:00

During the failure of this system patients would wait hours for an ambulance to turn up, and in some cases they just did not turn up at all. Not only did I consider what users really want from their systems during this time but I also thought about the term 'mission critical system' in a new light and wondered;

'would you like your life to depend on your systems?'

And then I thought;

'would you like everyone's life to depend on your systems?'

....and it was at this point that I felt very glad that Ronald Reagan’s 'star wars' initiative had been abandoned.

Mission Critical?

2006-05-20T09:05:00.000+01:00

Why the X-rays? Well, the X-ray shows my lungs as they are today and how they were at 11:00 PM one Saturday night in October a few years ago. I was having dinner with some friends and at midnight started coughing, the cough became worse and was accompanied by severe chest pains. By three in the morning I was so bad that a doctor had to be called out (this was the UK for you doubting Thomas's), an ambulance was called and I was carried down stairs on a stretcher and given oxygen.

Whilst in the ambulance I never once thought 'I wonder if ambulance was despatched by a well architected system?' In fact, I wonder if any users anywhere really cares about the architecture of the system he uses, nor should he.

In the hospital I was diagnosed as having 'raging phenomena', put in an oxygen mask and given massive doses of drugs. I was later told that I was lucky I was taken to hospital so quickly. And I was lucky because around this time one of the biggest ambulance services in England had recently tried to install a new system ..... and it had failed spectacularly. This is what the press said about it;

Extreme Personalisation

2006-05-18T12:49:00.000+01:00

All very interesting Terence, but what is the point of all this?

The point is ....that I wanted to go one better than John Thalhuber's presentations, should I include photographs of myself, of my wife, or my children?

No, none of these, I included an X-ray of my lungs;

Thalhuber Koan

2006-05-17T09:50:00.000+01:00

I used to go see presentations and product updates for a particular 4GL called Mapper, these were given by a technical expert John Thalhuber, who was involved in the development of the product but who helped out the marketing function from time to time. During the years he had been giving the presentations, I had been to see many of them, and they were very, very good. John made lots of use colour, pictures, and stereo music, all written in the particular 4GL and running on a PC. One of his techniques was to include photographs of his daughters, the Thalhuber girls, to explain various features and concepts, I watched those girls grow up.

One example of the Thalhuber girls in action was when John showed a photograph of his daughters with a monitor covered in jelly and cream on it .....a gooey interface!

Another of John's presentations was a 25th anniversary in which he looked back to the accompaniment of pop records of the time. Unfortunately, he explained that he had dropped his portable PC on the way in and instead of going back 25 years it became stuck in the 70's playing;

night fe-ver night fe-ver night fe-ver night fe-ver

...by the Bee Gee's. This was obviously an error as no one would want to be stuck in that decade.

A Software Cost Estimating Game

2006-05-16T09:27:00.000+01:00

Here's a game you can all play, I wouldn't say its going to be great fun but you may learn what some of the real costs of different technologies are, and they say that we learn from play. This is what you do;

STEP 1

Find a specification, preferably a big one, it would be excellent if it was one that you had actually build and had metrics on, but any will do. Having found your specification ..... blow the dust off of it .... isn't it amazing how specifications get put in out of the way places to gather dust? Well, having read quite a few I'm surprised they are kept at all, but all that money in creating the document......

STEP 2

Find a software house with ability to develop software using two different technologies you are interested in using, perhaps even ‘traditionalcentric’.

Now come on Terry, you can't use made up words like 'traditionalcentric', after all they stand no chance whatsoever of getting through the spelling checker!

««« INTERRUPT

Of course these days some people and technologies are described as 'dinosaurs', but then 'Jurassic Park' was about dinosaurs and went on to become one of the most popular film ever made.... and they

may be in museums, but they are usually the most popular attraction in there.

If you can't find a single organisation who can produce the systems in both ways, then you may have to find two separate companies - one for each method. In fact you could use as many as are willing to co-operate.

STEP 3

Ask the software house (or houses) to provide fixed price quotes for the two developments, clearly saying what is included and what is not..

Stand back in amazement!

QUESTION; Is this game being unfair to software houses? No, because some of you will end up accepting the quotes you have been given because its more cost effective and less risky than doing it yourself. Which leads you to wonder why you do anything in-house.

Productivity?

2006-05-14T12:36:00.000+01:00

One of the biggest issues in IT, and it is not simply a cost argument, is that of productivity, how important it is, why it is important, the business pressures, the pounds and dollars, and how we should always strive for it.

So, what is happening? Well, under current conditions it appears that we are moving backwards from 4GL's through to 3GL, and more likely, 2GL levels of productivity.

(But I could be wrong, I was once)

Distributed Data & Software - blah, blah, blah

2006-05-10T10:16:00.000+01:00

For the last thirty years systems people have been concerned with the integrity of data. How to ensure that once we have captured something we do not allow it to be corrupted, inadvertently deleted, etc. So how do you achieve the same objective when the data is spread around, when the users are spread around, when the software is made up from disparate elements, and when it is difficult to see the wood for the twigs for the branches for the trees for the woods for the forests for continents for the Earth for the Universe. OK, I exaggerate, so shoot me.

Then there's the question of controlling the correct versions of software. Making sure that the correct versions are in use in all devices at all times. New releases of software being a especially entertaining but again, if you are just building the software then somebody else can handle this can't they? As you move through development and production running you not only need to know what the current configuration is but what it was at a certain time and any planned future changes.

Now you did not believe that you get away forever from any responsibility did you? I am afraid that designing and building the recovery into the system has to be your responsibility. But do not worry, I am absolutely sure that all the components will fit together perfectly and deliver you transaction level recovery just the way you used to know it.

Ideally, the user should only be required to sign onto the system once, no matter how many layers or levels are between him and the data and applications he wants to get to.

We are nearly there, that was not so bad was it? Only one more hurdle to go. All we have to do now is to test this system! Oh, my god!

Issues with Client/Server for Example

2006-05-09T09:07:00.000+01:00

It is difficult to pin down the issues with client/server when no one really knew what it really is anyway. However, whilst the following comments may not apply in every single case, they certainly help to focus the mind.

All the issues revolve around multiplicity. Multiple software products, multiple hardware platforms, multiple development environments, multiple run time environments, and consequently multiple teams. Not only can all this result in multiple teams working on multiple products, it can also throw together teams who do not want to work together.

The basic problem with client/server was concerned with integration. Integrating many different components into a working whole. Which is not to say that this is very entertaining, the technical problems will be so many and so various that

1. you will find the task very challenging, and …

2. you will have so many more excuses to use when you are late that you can be very relaxed about the whole exercise.

It is not as if there was a single accepted infrastructure you could use to move forward. In fact you could spend the entire time allocated to developing the system to just choosing what you are going to build it with. Although you may find this idea intellectually interesting it is a well travelled route, the CASE and IPSE (remember Integrated Project Support Environment anybody?) guys have been here before, you will have to look for something else to trailblaze with.

But, relax, you are not on your own here. If you ever managed to build a system pity the poor sod who has to try to manage it. Configuration management is particularly difficult in a client/server system. How do you know where all the disks are? Are they full? Do you need more, and if so where? Like I said, consider yourself lucky.

Remember Client/Server?

2006-05-08T10:00:00.000+01:00

"The people were standing all around
at a shotgun wedding here in town" - Roy "C"

First of all I want to make it very clear that Client Server is not a buzz word ....it is two buzz words.

The 'What is In A Name' Koan

By the way; what happened to the phrase 'Master/Slave', and why did we drop it in favour of client/server?

If the press and the guru's are to be believed then everyone was building client server applications, so how is it I didn't know anybody who has one in and working? Every week there were stories about another spectacular failure of client server. I wonder how many there are now?

What is Client/Server Anyway?

In a recent survey the following answers were given to the question 'what is client/server?';

The Addition of LAN's to a Host

Diminishing Role of the Host

Increased End User Computing

Emotional Attachments

2006-05-03T09:29:00.000+01:00

I have great difficulty with the concept of being a 'believer' or a 'non-believer' when it is applied to software techniques. Not just to techniques, or languages, or methodologies, or 'concepts', but to certain hardware platforms or operating languages. Can you believe this? Does everything have to be so black and white? Can’t I take the best parts of everything or is it a binary thing?

OO comments that can apply to lots of things really

2006-05-01T10:06:00.000+01:00

The real advantage of 00 is when it is applied across multiple projects. Although identifying and objects across a single project is difficult, it surely cannot be an order of magnitude more difficult across multiple projects with multiple teams can it?

Yes it can!

As with most things, there is always more than one way of looking at problems. If the issue is maintenance, which I agree with, then consider this;

Cars become increasingly expensive to maintain as they become older. One option is not to use the car, a more realistic one being to replace it after a time. Of course you could buy an aluminium bodied, highly over engineered auto to last a long time but few people would consider this option. And if 00 leads to easier maintenance, as relational databases were going to, surely this means that we have accepted the fact that it is impossible to once and for all fully specify software before it is initially built. Quick, someone, better go warn the methodologists about this!

Re-usable?

2006-04-23T09:52:00.000+01:00

Now everyone is nodding agreement with the above law, but saying 'well, of course, we always knew that, we're not stupid you know!' So why do we never ask as our number one question 'why was this developed, where has it been used, who used it, why did they need to, what is it good at?' (OK, more than one question then).

Object Orientation uses the concept of classes which can be pre-designed and re-used. However, designing classes that have all the functionality required for any given use in the future is very difficult, too difficult to expect it to be achieved in 'average' developments. No, classes are best designed when all their potential use is already known - oops - I think this kind of defeats the object (!) of the exercise. In fact classes are at their very best when the are handling fixed, but complex, interfaces such as those found in Windows application, with mice, keyboards, files, etc. Could it be that the very definite benefits that have been observed by the use of object orientation in building user interfaces may not be as obvious when applied to the world of general business application development?

The Problem with every good idea in IT

2006-04-21T09:56:00.000+01:00

Object Orientation is a good idea. There have been many good ideas put forward in IT over the last 20 years. BUT,

NOW LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY!

THORPE'S LAW OF RELATIVITY;

There are no panaceas.

There are no 'silver bullets'.

What works in one situation will not work in all others.

More OO

2006-04-20T08:41:00.000+01:00

The best thing about object orientation is the variety of ways you can use the word 'object' or the initials '00'. Although the concept of the 'blob' by either Shlayer/Myer or Jacobson looks like a promising piece of Zen.

The 'Six Famous' Game (With Paradigm Shift)

2006-04-19T09:39:00.000+01:00

In my travels around Europe I invariably end up playing this game with whoever I am with (although it works better in smaller countries). The game goes like this; name six famous Finns (or Swedes, or Danes, or Poles, etc) who are not rally drivers (or tennis players, or ABBA, or Carlsberg, etc.). In order to play the game ‘properly’ the person in question must be a famous household name and not, a real example here, the chief executive of Volvo! Once played with an American in the group so limited him to Native Americans only.

By the way, what is a paradigm shift anyway?

And Finnish!

2006-04-18T12:18:00.000+01:00

Now I know you won't believe this, but I also knew a very good Finnish Technologist, Matti Leporanta, here some Finnish;

Kaisitteen'kasite on vaitia kasittaa siksi esitykseni nakokulma rylmatyohon on kaytannollinen.

Which roughly translated says " The concept of concept is difficult to understand that is why my presentation of teamwork is pragmatic".

And wouldn't a Welsh Spelling Checker be classed as a virus any way?

Really useful spelling checkers

2006-04-16T16:33:00.000+01:00

How would you write a Welsh spelling checker? Would you check to make sure that the word has no vowels (see later for a practical example of a use for a vowel eliminator) or that it is completely unpronounceable, or that it looks weird.

Back to the point of the story. I was working on the presentation on which this blog is based, with a colleague and he was using Mapper to do some of the clever multimedia bits. Now Mapper is a nonprocedural parameter based 4GL but it looks awful, let us take a look at some code;

@incv6ifv6<7gtolin-2;.

@if v36 = " Idv v36=0 ; if v37 = " gto lin 3 . truncate before stacking @cal,-4 AV 15-10,26-10,37-10,48-10,59-10,70-10 ,a,a,a,a,a,a 1 a=(v37a)*(v36)+(v36<=a)*(v37>=a)*a rnm -4. @cal,-4 AO 15-10,26-10,37-10,48-10,59-10,70-10 ,a,b,c,d,e,f 1 'm=vmin(a,b,c,d,e,f);n=vmax(a,b,c,d,e,f);m=vmin(a,m);n=vmax(a,n);'1 I 'a=a+b+c+d+e+f;n=vmax(a,n)' v20f12,v21f12 .

@if v37 = " Idv v37=v21 ; if v37 < v21 Idv v37=v21 ; if v36 = " Idv v36=v20 @rsr,v97,v98,v114 1 . v25 = interval, v26 = number of int, v28 = scale factor, @rsr 91 . subroutine to draw grid lines, tics, y-axis labels
@cal,-4 Ar.00000001 15-10,26-10,37-10,48-10,59-10,70-10 ,a,a,a,a,a,a 1
a=a rnm -4.',
@cal,-4AIV 15-10,25-10,37-10,48-10,59-10,70-10 ,a,b,c,d,e,f 1 a=a*v28;a=a-(v36*v28);b=a+(b*v28);c=b+(c*v28);d=c+(d*v28);e=d+(e*v28);1 _if=e+(f"v28).
@Idv v3i3=1,v4i3=1 . v4 wiLL be number of bars to draw + 1 @if v89(v3-1) = 1 inc v4 ; inc v3 if v3 < 7 gto lin-0 . @ifv4=7decv4;.
@art v179+1;1.225*a;242501b;c*1.225 v118i5,v12f12,v25i5,v26i5 .

Pretty bad, eh! On the other hand did have a song written about it. It was at this point that an amazing thought dawned on me -- all the best programmers I knew spoke languages that could best be described as 'self encrypting'.

Strange Languages

2006-04-15T16:21:00.000+01:00

Speaking of strange languages, C++ in this case, have you ever seen the Welsh language, also known as Gaelic, here is an example;

swp wystrys bro gwyr.

Which manages to say "gower oyster soup" using only one vowel.

In fact there are eight different Welsh words for 'cat', a fact I found out from the Welsh spelling checker. For example you can call a cat a 'cathod' or 'nghath', etc.;

00 Koans

2006-04-14T15:47:00.000+01:00

Would 'thing-orientation' have created the same academic and commercial interest as 'object-orientation'?

What is the difference between object orientation and entity analysis?

Because I know nothing about OO it is time for another digression, in fact, how about a series of nested digressions?

I started programming using Assembler language with the odd, occasional, drop into machine code. I subsequently went on to use COBOL and then a series of 4GL's which, as you can read elsewhere, seemed to make extensive use of punctuation marks of one sort or another. However, nothing could prepare me for my first sight of the structure of the C language, and where on earth did they get the idea for the name C+ and C++, what is wrong with I, II, III, and IV; or even l, 2, 3, 4; whoever said you can mix arithmetic symbols in amongst the rest of the alphabet. You c++an see what c++ould happen if this c++oncept were to c++atch on, and what has this to do with objec++t orientation?

Object Orientation

2006-04-13T09:23:00.000+01:00

"Wild thing, you make my heart sing" - The Troggs

Any thing (!) written about systems since 1990 must include something about object orientation, and this is no exception. However, there is a small problem here, and that is that I know nothing about the subject. Still, that should not stop me should it? There is certainly no reason why I cannot make uninformed, ignorant, luddite comments.

What is an Object?

An object is a 'thing' (hence 'Wild Thing' at the beginning of the chapter, do I really need to explain these things (oh no, another thing (oh no, another .... wait a minute I think I am in a semantic, loop - let us abort this line of thought))). More specifically an object is a 'thing' about which you which to store information for the system you are interested in. Now, if you have been around as long as I have then you may well remember a similar definition, only the last time it was referring to an 'entity'.

THING = OBJECT

THING = ENTITY

therefore; ENTITY = OBJECT ?

So, what is the difference between and entity and an object? By the way if an object is a thing the why not call it 'thing-orientation'.

Nihilism

2006-04-12T07:41:00.000+01:00

Zen is also often accused of nihilism as a result of misunderstanding the Buddhist idea that nothing exists independently. In fact, after explaining some of my ideas to a colleague he accused me of being nihilistic. "I am quite happy to be called nihilistic", I said to him. "Why is that?" he asked. "Because I do not know what it means" was my reply. Just in case you don't know what it means here is a definition;

nihilistic (narhr'listik, nr-), a and sh. A. adj. Of, relating to, or professing, hihilism: a. in philosophy or religion.

...that was not very helpful was it?

P.S. Oh, and by the way, as I said earlier, it is impossible to learn Zen from a blog, it is also impossible to learn how to develop software from a blog.

Other Zen Stuff

2006-04-11T08:43:00.000+01:00

Zen has been described as 'the Artless Art' meaning that you should not be self conscious about it, that you should not try too hard - good advice to systems developers.

Directness

Zen encourages freedom of thought and action, in fact it wants you to go beyond 'Zen' rather than follow rules or simply repeat what has gone before. Of course, if Zen did not do this then it would simply be another dead dogma.

Compassion

Zen teaches, as you would expect, compassion .......but ....

.....one of the things I love about Zen is the way it can encompass everything in its teachings. Yes, they teach compassion but one of the schools of Zen, the one founded by the Zen Master Ma-tsu, uses shouts abuse, kicks, punches and blows with sticks to 'enlighten' their students!

Meditation

2006-04-10T18:54:00.000+01:00

Zen is based almost entirely on the use of meditation as the path to enlightenment rather than on obeying rules ands studying scriptures. And if meditation is thinking, and one of the objectives of this blog is to make you think - then this is another good reason for the title.

Update to the 'Database Koan'

2006-04-10T07:42:00.000+01:00

I have had a Zen inspired update to the 'Database Koan' (did anyone notice I use one word for database and not two) from Matti Leporanta in Helsinki (more about Matti and Finland later this week);

"the system is not a problem nor the users, it is the customers who force users to use the system"

Irony

2006-04-09T20:21:00.000+01:00

Sometimes Zen teachers will describe things as exactly there opposite, in a humorous way of course. And the description of something as its opposite is the use of irony. For example;

"how should you build systems?"

"By defining, in writing, exactly what is required, freezing it, insisting that the customer agrees to what is described without seeing it, give the written description to a large number of technicians who are not allow to talk to the customer, place in a large locked room and wait for two years, stirring occasionally with new technology."

By the way, I was not being serious you know!

As you may have realised, Irony can be very dangerous, and can be two edged. Are the IT gurus being ironic, is our current crisis in IT ('current' as in 'always') the punch line of a huge celestial joke?

Here's how it works. Say something outrageous; if your views are excepted then write a book, give a lecture tour, pack in work and raise chickens on a farm (we will come back to the chickens later but in a few years from now there will be a world shortage due to the requirements of parallel processors and culling from bird flu). If your views are not excepted then say you were being ironic ..... write a book ......etc.

The 'Trust Me' Koan

2006-04-08T17:49:00.000+01:00

“Would I lie to you” – Charles and Eddy

One of the premises of this blog is the importance of experience, not only so that you know you are doing but that others believe that you know as well. This story shows why. A large, complex, development was underway, as usual racing against the clock. No one on the team, apart from myself, had ever built a major system from scratch, as with most of the world's development staff they had spent their time maintaining a system. We had designed the system as a series of modules, 20 in fact, and because some of the modules took longer to design than others, and because sometimes we had to go back to the drawing board there was no real 'overall design'. Nevertheless everything was going well and the project was making good progress until the team called a meeting to ask me a key questions;

Will the system work?

Will it all fit together?

Are we doing the right things?

And the responses (exaggerated slightly!);

Of course it will!

I've done this before!

Trust me ! (best said with Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses on)!

Did I know it would work? Of course not, they were building the software, not me! But all software developers go through this period of self doubt, of thinking that it is just all too complex to ever fit together, and this is where experience can pull you through. Of course you could always lie! ...wait a minute, it's time to conjugate a verb!

I lie
you lie
he lies
she lies
We lie
They Lie

Yes, they do actually, especially if they work in marketing, and you'd better remember that.

A Database Koan

2006-04-07T18:53:00.000+01:00

Here is a perfect example of a Zen koan; once I worked as a database administrator

INTERRUPT... The first decision the database administration function ever took was to say how many words was 'database' one or 'data base' two; it was decided that since DBA was three letters, and Administrator was obviously one - then 'database' must be two! Simple, eh?

As DBA (!) I was charged with checking the viability of-the data base usage that was put forward by various projects. On one of the projects I examined what was proposed and pointed out that one of the enquiry screens would take six hours to receive a response and would stop everyone else using the system. 'That's O.K.' was the response, ' no one would ever use that screen anyway!'

This led to the ultimate systems koan :- 'does system performance matter if no one uses the system'.

Which in turn leads you to believe that all systems are OK. unless used by users; which leads you to the fact that 'to be successful' you must not allow any users onto the software.

This is quite an important point, so let me say this a little louder;

SYSTEMS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM, USER'S ARE!

Koans

2006-04-07T07:44:00.000+01:00

The word koan originally meant a court case which had established a legal precedent and was therefore a public record of an interaction. In Zen a koan is also a record of an interaction, or a question between a Zen master and a student. Here are some famous Zen koan's;

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there will it make a sound?

A Zen master once saw two monks debating whether the wind or the flag was moving. He said 'This is not the movement of the wind, nor the movement of the banner; it is the movement of your minds'.

There are many thousands of Zen Koans but they all revolve around just two concepts; an understanding of what we are or an understanding of what we could be.

Absurdity

2006-04-06T08:02:00.000+01:00

One of the ways Zen has been taught is by the use of a series of drawings called 'the Ox-Herding Pictures'. There is a progression of ten Ox-Herding pictures starting with 'Seeking the ox' and ending with 'Entering the market place with helping hands'. This is my favourite;

The Ox and the Man both gone out of sight

I am sure that I am being irreverent, if such a thing is possible in Zen, but the idea of a picture showing a man and his ox having gone somewhere else strikes me as somewhat absurd. You could expand this and create an entire series of drawing, all of different objects which, unfortunately, are not in view at the moment. Perhaps their is an opportunity for me to become a famous Zen artist without actually painting or drawing anything at all.

The absurd relies on breaking the norm, on challenging fixed views, and on surprise.

Humour

2006-04-05T11:08:00.000+01:00

Humour plays a big part in the teaching of Zen and it is very easy to understand why.

· Can you concentrate if you are tense?

· Can you perform difficult tasks when you are really wound up?

· Are you at your best if you are under a great deal of stress?

· The answer to all these questions has to be - "NO"!

Ask any performer or sportsmen how to achieve peak performance and somewhere the word 'relax' will appear. This not only applies to physical activities but also, in fact even more so, to mental tasks.

"RELAX" - easier said than done. Entire philosophies, religions and businesses have built up around the idea that you really ought to relax more.

So where does humour fit in to this? Well, laughter and humour are amongst the very best ways of reducing stress, relaxing and doing whatever it is you are doing better. And so it is with Zen. How could you possibly become 'enlightened' whilst wound up not just like a watch spring but like a Swiss made, chronologically tested, titanium, waterproof, shockproof, accurate to a second a year, etc.

Of course there is much more to humour than the beneficial effects it has on your well being, it also enables the mind to look at ideas in a different way, to move quickly from one idea to another. Why? Well, humour relies a great deal on the putting together of conflicting images, of surprising us, by being different. All these aspects of humour are exactly what you want if you are looking at pushing the mind into new territory. Of course humour is a huge topic, in fact so large it is worth looking at some specific aspects of it in future posts.

A vowel conspiracy

2006-04-05T07:58:00.000+01:00

This post was going to be headed ‘humour’ but then the spelling checker started bugging me about the US spelling of ‘humor’. And then I thought about ‘colour’ and wondered what they were doing with all the spare ‘u’s? Are they being stored in a hollowed out mountain in the mid west, and if so why?

And then there was ‘organise’ and organize’ and I understood that this was much bigger than I had at first realis(z)ed, it includes consonants!

(For now, I will continue to use the UK spelling.)

Mount Fuji

2006-04-04T18:29:00.000+01:00

Why Zen?

2006-04-04T12:29:00.000+01:00

"Ob La Di, Ob La Da" - The Beatles

Since the title of this blog is 'Zen and the Art of Software Development' and Zen plays a great part in the way the ideas have been put forward, then it is appropriate that I say something about it. The first thing I must point out is that I am not a student of Zen. However, I have read a great deal on the subject (a statement that you will realise by the end of this post is incredibly ironic) and I admire its philosophies. What are the attributes of Zen that have given it a place in the title of this blog?

And, What is Zen?

Zen cannot be learnt from a book. Zen relies on experience and personal tuition. So, why have more books been written about Zen that perhaps another 'religion' in the world? All books on Zen suffer from a major disadvantage, and that is that it is impossible to describe it, it must be experienced. It is a similar problem to the one I face, can you really describe the feeling involved in building a system. Well you may not be able to learn Zen from a book but you can smile at the Humour, you can nod with understanding at the wise statements, and you can be mystified by its illogicality (I may have just invented a new word).

So ...

What is the objective of Zen?

ENLIGHTENMENT

Or “ Nirvana” (not the grunge band that came from Seattle).

Which is when you realise yourself and the entire universe completely.

The title translated into Kanji

2006-04-04T08:36:00.000+01:00

What do I hope to achieve?

2006-04-03T09:37:00.000+01:00

"You take my breath away" - Berlin

What are the 'objectives' of this blog? Well, first of all I have been told many times on many management training courses, seminars, books and by many, many 'bosses' that objectives must always be measurable, achievable, and with a fixed end date. It is this kind of dogma, of fixed ideas, that this blog sets itself against. This is not to say I do not have any objectives in mind, of course I do its just that there not very precise, not measurable and not time stamped but they are very definitely achievable! Here are my objectives for this blog;

- first of all I want to entertain you, because unless I do that then none of the other objectives are possible. Think back to over all the nonfiction books you've read, which ones had the most impact, were memorable and, perhaps, even changed the way you thought and acted? Chances are the books that were entertaining also had the most impact.

- I want to reach a 'wider' audience. As I said earlier, this blog is based on some presentations, and it is much more effective to deliver the messages embodied within it in person. However, there are only so many presentations it is possible to deliver, and there or only so many Systems people who can manage to attend them.

- I want to make you think! If we spent more time thinking and less time in meetings, filling in forms, completing project plans, writing documentation, and even writing code, then our jobs would be much, much easier and we would produce better results.

The problem is that lots of people, including some of you, do not believe this is true. Let us be very clear, if you do not think and let the people who work for you think then you are not doing your job! Do not ever be pressured into mistaking code or paper production, etc, as real progress.

BUT

THIS IS A 'ZEN' BLOG

So, if this is a 'Zen' based blog (and it is!) what is the real objective? Well, the real objective must be for you to achieve.....

ENLIGHTENMENT

I would really like to see someone turn that very real objective into something that is 'measurable', etc., etc.

Well, those are my objectives, what are yours?

The Twilight Zone

2006-04-02T16:47:00.000+01:00

Now where are we going to go?

We are going to go on the following journey ....

YOU'RE TRAVELLING TO ANOTHER DIMENSION.. A DIMENSION NOT ONLY OF SIGHT AND SOUND.. BUT OF MIND..

A JOURNEY INTO A WONDROUS LAND...

WHOSE BOUNDARIES ARE THAT OF IMAGINATION..

AT THE SIGNPOST UP AHEAD..

YOUR NEXT STOP...

Cue theme music;

DO DOO DO DOO DO DOO

The Theme from The Twilight Zone

BTW this is not the score to the Twilight Zone unless it was written by Franz List and not Bernard Herrman. This from Wikipedia;

The four-note repetition in the Twilight Zone's theme music is so familiar to American audiences that it may be sung or hummed as a reference in conversation to something unusual (in lieu of actually uttering that a situation bears resemblance to something from the "twilight zone").

But it won't all be scary, we'll be able to see 'Lucy in the sky' and "We may be the Walrus", we'll be going on a Magical Mystery Tour of our own.

Why the twilight zone, why the outer limits, why the magical mystery tour? Well, part of the answer to this question is the title of the blog -'ZEN'. So the real question is 'why Zen? I'll explain 'why Zen' later, but for now a word of warning, a great many subjects will be touched upon, but because this is 'Zen blog' topics will be being covered in a random order, with frequent interruptions to the natural flow of things.

A dedication

2006-04-02T11:56:00.000+01:00

I'd like to dedicate this blog, not to my mom, or wife, of children, or (god forbid) my employers. No, I'd like to dedicate this blog to someone who's simple law influences everything I do, not Isaac Newton, or Albert Einstein, or Pascal, or Turing, no none of those, my hero is Vilfredo Perato (1848-1923 ) an Italian lawyer/mathematician belwow is a representation of Perato's Law (in German of course);

Perato's law is more commonly known as the 80/20 law and put into English means that eighty percent of the results can be achieved with twenty percent of the effort, or 20 percent of people spend 80% of the money, or ...... My experiences have constantly proved and reproved Perato's law, how long does it take to get the basic design of a system in place? And then how long does it take to get to the finished product? The same applies to the physical implementation but at least everyone knows that this is an iterative process and accepts the 80/20 concept.

Another classic example of Perato's law in action is during testing, everyone knows that you can't test 100%, but in testing we know that it is by careful selection that we get maximum benefit; so remember - it's not just any old 80% of the work; you can't just say 'I'll do four fifths of the job and that will be the most effective way of working', you have to use intelligence in order to get the benefit. So you know about Perato, and you know about 80/20, how does this help? Well, we'll come back to estimating later but be aware that the 'full' job will take five times longer than the solution you probably first had in mind.

An alternative to the 80/20 law is my own 95/95 law which says that when 95% of the task is complete the remaining 5% will require another 95% effort, but;

Perato Rules OK!.

Fashion?

2006-04-02T11:12:00.000+01:00

I suppose what goes for the academic world also goes for the research and development departments of the various suppliers to the industry. Again, huge sums are invested and some of this is purely to follow the latest fashions, to shorten the skirt on your database, or change the colour of your programming language. Although, despite the fashions, not all of these products see the light of day (thank god)!

And academics

2006-04-02T09:32:00.000+01:00

It is not only the sales and marketing departments that are to blame, after all where do they find the latest bandwagons to jump on? Amazingly, some of the major culprits are academics - the fact is that there is very little that is really new in software development. I do not suppose that there would be too many research grant to look at 'testing dot net systems', or 'software version control in a distributed environment'. The fact is software development suffers from two major problems in its relationship with academia. Firstly, no one has really defined what it is, is it mathematics, engineering, or logic? The nearest definition is by Fred Brooks who called it' an alien environment' in his famous book 'The Mythical Man Month, and anyone in the commercial environment will appreciate this definition when they are trying, for the nth time, to explain to a senior manager from another area just why his 'small' request is going to take 'forever'.

Secondly, software development is still relatively new and therefore no one really knows how to deal with it yet, there is no expectation that research into 'the works of Francis Bacon' in the English department of a university would impact how journalists perform their day to day tasks; this same expectation does not hold with the; computer science, or information technology, or computing, or data processing, or electronic data processing , or systems .......... research, or whatever today's name is for the area we all work(ed) in. In fact my job title has changed so many times in the past that I sometimes felt like I was on the FBI's witness protection program!

More on 'salesmen'

2006-04-01T14:50:00.000+01:00

I once worked in the sales arm of a computer manufacture and went through all of their sales training. What were we taught? We were taught to sell the benefits of technology to the senior executives in the organisation, to go beyond the IT department, to sell 'high and wide' within the organisation. (I afterwards used to say that as a result of this I have 'lied professionally'.) This approach was common across all manufactures and results in questions from senior users, chief executives, etc., such as 'why aren't we going to thin client?', 'I hope you will be using object orientation on this?' and so on. Is it any wonder that new approaches and technologies are used inappropriately most of the time.

A word about marketing and sales

2006-04-01T09:22:00.000+01:00

Who is to blame?

Once, whilst listening to a marketing manager explain how their products were at the leading edge of client/server, or object orientation, or openness, or whatever, I realised that with so many marketing and sales staff involved in IT they have to keep coming up with new things to market and sell. How many millions of dollars are used IT marketing every year, probably more than in the fashion industry and the same hype is created. After all if the database you purchased five years ago were not now out of date where would all the new software products go?

I interrupt this venom to retell a story that has been going around a long time; Once upon a time brave King was in a fierce battle with arrows, swords and spears, and he appeared to be losing. One of the King's knaves told the King that there was someone here to see him. 'I haven't time to see a salesman now' shouted the King to the man in the dark blue suit and white shirt carrying a bazooka!

THE MORAL OF THIS STORY IS;

Always be aware of what is available.

Eventually, during a break in the battle the King agrees to see the salesman and orders 50 bazookas for delivery the next day. After three months one bazooka arrives, and no ammunition.

THE REAL MORAL OF THIS STORY IS;

Never believe a salesman.

A word about 'users'

2006-03-30T09:10:00.000+01:00

When Zen was first presented to the unsuspecting public it was at a conference for users of a Unisys technology and my particular contribution was billed as being from a 'User. It was at this point that I began to realise that 'User', a word we use to describe our customers, is a term of abuse. To me the word 'User' brings to mind two images, firstly that of a junkie - a drug user;

...and secondly, as one of those people we build systems for who cannot make up their minds what they want and who act as if they have just had a lobotomy;

That's right, the people who drive us berserk with their constant demands, their lack of foresight, rant, rant, rant! The following photograph was once put up on the department door to try and discourage some of these traits;

Copyright

2006-03-29T18:02:00.000+01:00

But the good news was, at least for me, that the presentation was well received, in fact requests followed to rerun it four or five times during the mid 1990’s, in Birmingham (the one where they have strange accents, oh I see, well OK the one in the UK), Nice, Helsinki, Gothenburg and Copenhagen. This became the 'Zen World Tour' and led to one of the reasons behind these writings, more and more people wanted to hear the original presentation and I had a day job to do!

Now for the bad news, the organizers of one of the conferences I was scheduled to present at was concerned that, 'if it went well' ('if indeed!) the audience would expect a similar style session in the future, and so was born;

ZEN II
-The Son of Zen -3D
- This time it’s personal
- In software no one can hear you scream
- Just when you thought it was safe to develop software

(all done to the theme tune to Jaws – do-do do-do do-dododododo)

ZEN II was really the bits leftover from the original presentation, but also included some of the more outlandish stories from earlier times. As the amount of material grew a number of friends and colleagues persuaded me to collect my thoughts in a more structured way and' WRITE IT DOWN!'

'WRITE IT DOWN!' was not going to be as simple as it seems, you see the original Zen (ZEN I) was multimedia and involved images, text, sound, morphing, video and animation together with a huge number of 'props' such as a bucket with 100 table tennis balls in it (see Downsizing for an explanation of this particular image). So, would it be possible to recreate a true multimedia presentation in writing? I don't know, we'll have to wait and see «««GOTO # 247 FOR DISCUSSION ON INTERRUPTS

First; In amongst these random ramblings I have littered some fundamental rules, some axioms for a better life, here is the first;

W.C.FIELD'S FIRST RULE OF ACTING - "Never work with children or animals".
THORPE'S FIRST AMENDMENT TO W.C.FIELD'S FIRST RULE;
THE FIRST RULE OF PRESENTING - "Never work with children or animals OR multimedia!"

Why? Well, multimedia in presentations deliberately develop problems immediately prior to the scheduled start time, they run out of memory; they develop obscure graphics problems, and generally misbehave. In fact the use of technology in presentations should be used as a bench marking procedure for robustness.

A_Word_About_Copyright

I have to be honest, the Zen presentations were not the first I had ever done, in fact over the years I have given quite a few. Over those years a good friend of mine Colin McGavin from Christchurch, New Zealand, had used some of the ideas I had put forward. Can you imagine my surprise when I first saw a diagram I had created being used in another context on another continent? It is to keep Colin under control that I now use the copyright symbol wherever possible;