{"id":7596,"date":"2014-11-07T16:47:29","date_gmt":"2014-11-08T00:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seedcode.com\/?p=7596"},"modified":"2014-11-07T16:47:29","modified_gmt":"2014-11-08T00:47:29","slug":"fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seedcode.com\/fear\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading\u00a0The Soul of a New Machine<\/em>, \u00a0Kidder 1981. Describing work on the Data General MV\/8000 in 1979.<\/p>\n

Alsing [lead architect] thought that even under the best circumstances, several kinds of fear attend a debugging. One was the fear of \u201cThe Big Mistake\u201d, the one that would be discovered late in the game and would require a major redesign\u2013and with it perhaps a fatal delay. There was \u201cthe flakey fear\u201d: that they\u2019d designed [the machine] and were debugging it in such a way that it would never be reliable or easy to build in large numbers. [They] had that one fairly well in hand. But there was also \u201cthe bogeyman fear\u201d. \u201cJust something dark and nameless,\u201d said Alsing, \u201cthat the machine just won\u2019t ever work.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s the infinite page fault you didn\u2019t anticipate. The bogeyman is the space your mind can\u2019t comprehend.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"fear\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sounds very\u00a0contemporary for an industry that’s supposed to have changed so radically in the last 30 years. Reminds me that many of the problems of software production identified in the 60’s\u00a0continue to be the problems we wrestle with today. So maybe we should own up to the enormity of what we’re working on and beat ourselves up just a little less.<\/p>\n

The Soul of a New Machine<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading\u00a0The Soul of a New Machine, \u00a0Kidder 1981. Describing work on the Data General MV\/8000 in 1979. Alsing [lead architect] thought that even under the best circumstances, several kinds of fear attend a debugging. One was the fear of \u201cThe Big Mistake\u201d, the one that would be discovered late in the game and would require a major redesign\u2013and with it perhaps a fatal delay. There was \u201cthe flakey fear\u201d: that they\u2019d designed [the machine] and were debugging it in such a way that it would never be reliable or easy to build in large numbers. [They] had that one fairly well in hand. But there was also \u201cthe bogeyman fear\u201d. \u201cJust something dark and nameless,\u201d said Alsing, \u201cthat the machine just won\u2019t ever work.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s the infinite page fault you didn\u2019t anticipate. The bogeyman is the space your mind can\u2019t comprehend.\u201d   Sounds very\u00a0contemporary for an industry that’s supposed to have changed so radically in the last 30 years. Reminds me that many of the problems of software production identified in the 60’s\u00a0continue to be the problems we wrestle with today. So maybe we should own up to the enormity of what we’re working on and beat ourselves up just a little less. The Soul of a New Machine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-7596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-making-time"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Fear - SeedCode<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/seedcode.com\/fear\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Fear - SeedCode\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Reading\u00a0The Soul of a New Machine, \u00a0Kidder 1981. Describing work on the Data General MV\/8000 in 1979. Alsing [lead architect] thought that even under the best circumstances, several kinds of fear attend a debugging. One was the fear of \u201cThe Big Mistake\u201d, the one that would be discovered late in the game and would require a major redesign\u2013and with it perhaps a fatal delay. There was \u201cthe flakey fear\u201d: that they\u2019d designed [the machine] and were debugging it in such a way that it would never be reliable or easy to build in large numbers. [They] had that one fairly well in hand. But there was also \u201cthe bogeyman fear\u201d. \u201cJust something dark and nameless,\u201d said Alsing, \u201cthat the machine just won\u2019t ever work.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s the infinite page fault you didn\u2019t anticipate. The bogeyman is the space your mind can\u2019t comprehend.\u201d   Sounds very\u00a0contemporary for an industry that’s supposed to have changed so radically in the last 30 years. Reminds me that many of the problems of software production identified in the 60’s\u00a0continue to be the problems we wrestle with today. So maybe we should own up to the enormity of what we’re working on and beat ourselves up just a little less. 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