Modern Life

Freddio

Once upon a time there was a factory. The factory manufactured computer code for computers. In ancient history, factories only used to use one kind of language which their managers preferred. So, you had some factories that made java and other factories that made basic but never factories that made basic java.

Then things changed, when factories got asked to build things that were never built before, so rather than using their basic or their java in more clever ways, they changed their languages to new kinds of language, but still only one type of language. The people who wrote these new languages hadn't changed the premise that a piece of data was a 1 or a 0. They hadn't invented new ways of sending a 1 or a 0 to another part of a computer. What they had done though, was to confuse all the workers who were used to working in more traditional logical ways in the factory. The name they gave to this was progress.

i was a young worker who started in a factory when he left school. In school they taught him the traditional methods to make code and i believed he was well prepared when his application to work in the factory was accepted. i quickly saw that the way they made code in the factory was the new way, so he started to read up on it. He read blog after blog and formed opinions based on what he read. It was like fake news in that none of the blogs were ever scrutinised or debunked. It was almost as if the way to do things was reset every spring/summer and autumn/winter.

As the older workers in the factory became sanguine and more out of touch with this progress, i forged ahead and became the goto line when an opinion was needed. Many of the questions he was asked were very complex, but if you were seen to be not able to make code in the factory, you would lose your job. i's opinions were never based on empirical research but in the uncontested online world. As a result, the factory's output became increasingly brittle. The customer didn't mind because they were unaware how brittle it became, so they didn't predict a problem.

One day, a part of the factory's code snapped. It was too brittle. Everyone had to stop working and try and fix the code which was entangled in a mess on the manufacturing line. All the older workers couldn't see the difference in the code before or after it snapped. i, and the team he lead were running about with spanners and nails trying to reravel the code into something that would operate. i looked up blogs, installed the language's newer version, held meetings, ordered everyone to stop, then to start, then to stop again. i didn't have the solution.

As the days went on, no solution appeared. The factory's code was now tangled up everywhere. The customer rang up the manager and asked, when would it be repaired, so the manager went and asked i. i was getting flustered, he was out of his depth. He didn't know where to turn or who to get help from. He wanted out. i was young, he didn't have family, or a house to pay for so he didn't see any problem with his get out clause. He told the manager it would all be fixed the next day. The manager went back to the customer and advised her that all would be ok.

The next day, i didn't turn up for work. Or the day after. He had sailed off into the sunset and the older workers and the manager didn't know what to do. Fortunately, the factory's customer was a kind person and she said, listen I can wait. I don't need code to breathe or eat. Whatever it takes to get some code that works, I'll wait.

So, the old workers took the heap of entangled code off the production line and threw it away. They took out all their old tools which never stopped working, just got a bit dusty and remade the factory's code. It worked and they could all understand it. It had never stopped working. In a short space of time, they had remade the code and gave it to the customer, and she was delighted.

A couple of days later, the factory workers were sitting in the canteen and they were discussing all the things that had happened. Everything turned out for the best in the end but the one thing they all agreed was that, what they were told was progress, was a great big negative, a singular -1, and that at the root of it was i.

Graham

Struggling with a new language? Going back to BASIC?