Unthinkability

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) procedures are designed to keep you safe from microbial nasties that live in your food.  Commercial kitchens are bound by regulations to properly handle, cook, and store food.  Some of the Critical Control Points (CCPs) refer to washing hands and utensils, some refer to cooking food at or above a certain temperature, and some refer to storing food below a certain temperate.

While HACCP is a ’standard process’ for establishing food safety procedures, there does not appear to be a ’standardized list’ of types, steps, or protocols for HACCP activities.  I haven’t found any list of things that contains “Anthropometrical Precaution #2: Wash Hands after handling,” or “Thermal Precaution #12: Cook at or above x degrees for a minimum of x minutes,” or “Nasal Precaution #42: Blow nose on clean shirt sleeve.”  This is driving me crazy.

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If you have electricity in your house, you are probably familiar with version numbers.  Software developers use version numbers to differentiate between different builds of the same application, and these version numbers are critical to our way of life.  Why on earth did Microsoft take it upon themselves to turn my world upside down!?

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“Moonlight” is an open-source project attempting to implement a clone of Microsoft Silverlight on Linux.  This is great news for me (and other developers) faced with self-doubt regarding our continued allegiance to the Microsoft development platforms surrounding .NET.  This is also bad news for the Adobe Flash camp hoping to maintain a monopoly on the scaling vector graphics (SVG) market.

Funny how the business side of software must treat the minorities (Mac, Linux) with as much respect as the majority (Microsoft Windows).  Funny and true for my company, who looks to woo the sometimes persnickety healthcare market with their desire to use non-Microsoft thin client devices.  Whatever we make, it really needs to be able to run on Opera and/or Firefox on Linux, though very few are ready to implement Linux-based devices within their Microsoft Active Directory authentication infrastructure.  That’s been my experience, anyway.

Allow me to apply my  “curse” on Microsoft by predicting their victory over Flash within 4 years.  Every time that I have predicted a major upheaval or downfall of a company, the exact opposite has happened.  (more…)

Yes, I am a geek dad.  I waited in line at midnight for Halo 3

And then I stayed up until 3am playing it.

It certainly wasn’t the rush that I remember for Halo 2, either emotionally or in terms of the number of people who stood in line with me. 

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Imagine me in a job interview where the interviewer asks the obligatory question “What was your biggest mistake and what did you learn from it?”

If I’m ever asked that question, I will respond by asking “Don’t you read my blog?”

In my early days as a developer, I enjoyed the fast track to management.  I had proven myself as a charismatic and technical “fixer” and I became in charge of a sprawling project with a single developer that was way off the rails.  My role soon evolved into constantly explaining “why things aren’t done yet.”  The following is my mea culpa and my cautionary tale about newbies who manage software projects.

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 Listening to non-technical people trying to manage the inner details of a software project is like listening to a bunch of 6 year-olds planning a trip to the moon.

“My teacher said that its really cold on the moon, so we’d better take our jackets!”

“I’m going to take my umbrella in case it rains!”

“I’m going to take crayons to draw pictures of it.”

“Wait!  I read that there’s no air on the moon.  How are we going to breath?”

…pause…

“I know!  We can take balloons, blow them up, and then breath that air!”

“YEAH!  Problems solved!”

It’s OK to involve 6 year-olds in the planning process as long as we don’t let them operate the arc welders, build the spaceship, or fill it with rocket fuel.  Likewise, it’s a good thing that we don’t let non-technical folks (or 6 year-olds) drive the technical details of software projects… or do you?  May the heavens help you if you’re in that situation!

Assuming that we have “experts” controlling this project, and assuming we have experienced builders choosing our tools and materials, we should welcome this non-technical input with open arms!  6 year-olds are actually the best place to start for user input; who knows better about how to have fun on the moon?! 

Amateurs might immediately dismiss the six year-olds suggestions as being silly and ignorant.  However, I hope that I could listen more deeply to analyze the six year-olds’ statements, to see through to the underlying concerns, and to find the nuggets of truth that non-technical folks excel at expressing:

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While searching for the origin of a comment that I heard on Frontline tonight, I stumbled on a collection of brilliant quotes.  There were some old/lame ones in the list, but also some surprising/fresh ones.  Here are some of my favorites:

Any system or program, however complicated, if looked at in exactly the right way, will become even more complicated.

The leak in the roof is never in the same location as the drip.

Clarke’s First Law:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

For every credibility gap there is a gullibility fill.

If people listened to themselves more often, they’d talk less.

Variables won’t; constants aren’t.

Never characterize the importance of a statement in advance.

People will believe anything if you whisper it.

See the entire list here:
http://www.cse.unr.edu/~sushil/class/135/notes/quotes.html

Our company’s president exhibited an uncommon understanding of the balance between “Software Quality vs. Quantity” in a meeting yesterday.  While talking about our new QA lead’s experience, requirements-driven testing, and the ol’ waterfall method, he said:

We can do better with our specifications process, but it shouldn’t tie our hands.  It’s the difference between “Ready, Fire, Aim” and “Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim, Aim, Aim…”  We have to find a comfortable place in between.

His geek cred went up +4 points for me yesterday.

I have not felt this ignorant since 1991.  Right now, I feel like a beginner, a novice, an incompetent loser.  My new custom South Park avatar accurately represents my current mental condition.

Before today (before Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation – a.k.a. WPF), I was a brilliant software designer, grunting out ingenious systems daily for my benevolent overlords.  Now, I am a babe in the woods and I’m grumpy.  Such is the terrible and mighty power of Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation and the Expression Toolset.

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I stumbled upon a very important initiative from Microsoft: HealthVault.  Here’s their blurb:

When it’s your job to protect your family’s health, you need every advantage. Imagine if you had a way to collect, store, and share the health information critical to your family’s well-being.  HealthVault is the new and FREE way to do just that.

They officially opened the site in October ‘07, and I only found out about it through Jon Udell’s blog.  Not that Jon isn’t a media giant, but I would have thought I would have heard about it through one of my other Microsoft information channels.  So, with a few hours to ponder the project, here is what I know:

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