Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Documentation is a burden

In a post about Agile programming at http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/agileDocumentation.htm this quote of "Documentation is a burden" jumped out at me.
 
One of the great advantages of the old - but functional - COBOL language (*COmmon Business Oriented  Language) was that it pretty much self documented while writing and there was seldom a need to write verbal description - you just added a flowchart and you were done.
 
The modern programming languages are so "feature rich" with ability to inherit and REDEFINE that it becomes more of a burden in documenting them since they CAN redefine items people DO.

Spaghetti code? Nope - just 3 to 10 levels of inheritance that is actually WORSE since you are never sure if anything is ever just "plain vanilla" or been redefined and modified somewhere up the chain.
 
Me I LIKE "go to" statements - at least I know WHERE I am going !

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Meetingitis

Meetingitis: Noun
 
A condition in which a person spends every part of the work day in meetings one after the other thereby preventing any dissemination or implementation of any decision made from being communicated to anyone else.
 
Synonym: stasis
 
Lexicology: Tom Philo 2006

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Convenience Conspiracy

Convenience, we love it! Every person is supplied with lots of ways to make their live easier - or are they?
Every time there has been a hugh increase in "disposable" income there has been a corresponding surge in new conveniences that quickly is deployed that forces people to use that money to PAY for that convenience - by law.
 
Right after the Second World War (WW II, Great Patriotic War, WW I repeat) economy in the western nations picked up and people started having lots more money to spend on what THEY wanted.
This is of course goes directly against what business and governments like - they want that any extra money to go to THEM so they can spend it on what THEY want.
 
Take vehicles (cars) as a good example. Cars are fundamentally very simple. An engine takes fuel, burns it so that it turns a vertical force into a rotating torque force that is converted to turn wheels that allow people to go forward / backward by using a clutch.
 
Most anyone could drive it, repair it, understand it by just looking at it. This base mechanical familiarity helped the US win WW II due to the high amount of people who grew up around vehicles on farms who went into the military and worked / used those machines.
After the war they started putting new features on cars - and making it complicated which costs more money that these people just now happened to have.
 
Every increase in complexity takes away the ability of people to FIX that item.
 
Cars started going faster so they started mandating new safety items to protect the people - which just happen to cost a lot more money. They took away manual chokes and that in turn eliminated a lot of people from working on the carbs due to the need to understand how that works. They started adding in the sensors to regulate emissions and that meant you now needed special bypass hoses in order to even take off some of the air filters and get the car to even run. Added in new electronic ignition so that now you cannot even tune your own car unless you have a hundred thousand dollar piece of gear to plug your car into. They made changing oil complicated by putting the filter into an almost inaccessible location requiring a lift so a person can reach to it. Each and every one of those items are touted as a convenience - at each rise in consumer disposable income.
 
Look around - see what other patterns you can see where you are now forced to pay others to do work that was commonly done by yourself 50 years ago? Look at maintenance of your house, pouring concrete, garbage disposal, insurance, most everything of modern life you are now forced to pay someone else either to do it or must have it BY LAW - and every law passed is of course for "your own protection."
 
But isn't it amazing that each one happens after the working people happen to be getting ahead?

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Immigration - Privilege, Reward, or Right?

Immigration has always been around - even when not recognized as such. When the Vikings of the Middle Ages (700 to around 1100) exploded out of the northern countries they did so to steal valuables and go back home. After a while they asked themselves WHY go back - just take what you want and stay and avoid the trip home - and they did. So they settled in the lands they had easy access too. Today they would be considered "economic refugees" "looking for work" using current USA standards and the politicians would be welcoming them. In reality they were out to take anything of value and did not care about the people they killed or stole from at all. Only after a few hundred years when THEY had become the owners of the land did  they try and stop OTHERS from doing what they had done themselves - since now they were in power.
Until the rise of the states of England, France, Spain, Italy and other European nations did control of borders really start to occur in the 1300s. It was now important to ensure that peoples - note that it was not individuals but whole GROUPS of similar social organizations - be controlled out to ensure that the existing nation was not jeopardized by an influx of people with different values faster than they could be assimilated.
That is the key.
If people come with the thought OF assimilating into the nation - remembering their heritage but adopting what already exists in their nation - they then have no problem. The mass migration into the US from the pre-civil war era (1840 thru 1861) was easily absorbed - most were from the United Kingdom and the others were going to a nation that almost universally spoke English so they learned it, figured out their opportunities, and USED THE EXISTING SYSTEM to make their fortunes. - and many did.
When the next big wave started coming to the USA from the 1880s on until the War to End All Wars they came from Eastern Europe and almost no one spoke English. However, these people LEFT their old world behind, landed and decided to LEARN English since that was the language of the NATION - and by 1940 only 1% of the population of immigrants who had come over and who were still alive could not speak English - all the rest could and all their children could - and most could not speak their original language at all after the 2nd Generation. (I go this from Census data from the 1930s.) 
There are newsreels of the early 1900s where on the screen for the text bills are three different languages! You would see German, Polish,Italian all displayed so the people could watch the movie / news in the theatres. By 1920 it was ONLY English. The people had all willingly on their own learned English - there was no "Second Language" classes - you went to school and everything was in English so you learned that - and at home you spoke your parents. These are the 2nd and third generation people who fought in WW I and WW II. Which is why so many US servicemen could speak German, French, Italian, Polish, Russian and so on since their parents had emigrated. But they spoke ENGLISH.
Coming to the USA - or ANY NATION - is privilege and a REWARD for following THEIR rules. No one has a RIGHT to walk up and state they should live there because 300 years ago someone slighted their family in Europe, Africa, Asia whatever.
The current wave of immigrants coming to the US largely have NO desire at all to become American - they are TRUELY economic workers who are here to exploit our economy and go back - or stay here without adopting the ways of the US and bring their foreign values to the US - WHICH THEY FLED FROM SINCE IT DID NOT AFFORD THEM THE SAME ECONOMIC ability. Thing about that. They flee their country for a better life but want to bring the SAME values to here that blocked them from getting ahead in their OWN country. That is setting the USA (or any country really) for failure in 20 to 60 years.
When business and people start stating that people coming to a nation should be pampered and shielded from learning English - like what Miller Brewing Company is doing - then that is the start of the destruction of that nation. When companies start stating that people have the RIGHT to come here solely for economic reasons - and cannot be forced to assimilate, then what the Civil War was fought for - a UNITED states - will degenerate back into separate states / regions which will eventually rebel since THEIR culture will be so different from the rest they will not LIKE / WANT to be a part of the rest. ANY state or region of the US actually rebelled or declared their independence you can sure bet the FEDERAL Government is NOT going to send in troops to put it down. In reality they could do NOTHING at all and the USA will break up.
If all the illegals went and registered to vote - using the existing system by having  the local poling workers let them vote since they are run by those who will look the other way about it - and they voted as a block vote - they could elect every single legislature from the local to the US Government who would work to ensure they would break away. And nothing could be done to stop it.