It's just like that

Hopah! In between a glorious amount of remunerated exhaustion and the efforts at trying to recover backups I haven't had time to stick my head through a small copper wire for the sake of peering about the globe. The discerning individual might wonder how in the Sam Hill I possibly have backups. To be fair, they're mostly old and cranky as it seems that DVDs take a dim view to being used as a pillow while taking an impromptu backpack tour of flyover America. So the general process involves dumping the thing to disk and then wandering off as the machine remains unusable for hours while it attempts to get back bytes that refuse to be recovered.

The whole thing's a bit like peeking inside a leaky time capsule to see what folks thought were important back when they though it was pretty swell to stuff meat inside their Jello treats. It's a stomach turning mess. In the course of it I've tripped over a number of old code drops that I'd have preferred forgotten. Code drops that remind me precisely why I despite computer programming.

See, there's precisely two kinds of programmers in the world. And they have one point only in common: They both have a bust of Niklaus Wirth in their workspace. Now the one kind tends to smile off into space while rubbing their crotch on it while the other kind simply uses the thing as a handy place to keep knives when they're not busy peeling an apple. If you're a sane individual with a reasonable social life this means nothing to you. To understand you first need to cotton on to the basics of how a computer works. Bear with as it's all quite simple and involves nothing more than a high school, a linebacker, and a fishmonger.

All computation with glass requires that we do one thing, and one thing only: We jot down notes on bits of glass that we stash here and there about the place. We can pull them back up when we need and read or change what we've written, but we can only do that for a single piece at a time. In the oldest days this was a pretty simple affair. All we had was the lunch lady, two stacks of stoneware plates, and a grease pencil. The fishmonger would simply yell at the lunch lady to either move plates from one stack to the other one plate at a time. Or the fishmonger would yell at her to take the grease pencil and jot notes on those plates. As a bonus, we were all told by the G-men from IBM, the lunch lady wasn't too shabby at basic math as well. So the fishmonger could also tell her to take two plates, add or multiply them, and throw them away. She'd simply take a new plate on which she'd write the answer and then place on top of one of the stacks of dishes.

This, of course, is really slow. So the first thing we do is hire a dishwasher. The dishwasher has the ability to lift up a bunch of dishes in one go so that the lunch lady can read what's written on a plate buried underneath. No one can get the plate out mind you. But she can read what's there and jot that note on a new plate which she can throw it back on top. That's all the dishwasher does and it saves a great deal of time shuffling plates one-by-one from place to place.

This is all still quite slow and so we get the keen idea that we have this football time lying about. So we employ one of the linebackers to run plates from the cafeteria to the football field where he'll put the plate on one of the yard-marker pips. Or take a plate from there back to the lunch lady. And now our fishmonger is starting to get in business. The fish monger can yell at the lunchlady to do what she's always done, or yell at her and the dishwasher to peek at what's jotted on a plate deep down, or can monger the football star to run plates back and forth between the football field and the stacks of dishes.

Now you might get the idea that the linebacker is doing the most work while the dishwasher is a slacking a bit. And it really is still a bit slow waiting for the fellow in safety gear to run all over campus. But it's a school, we have cubby holes! So we install a large set of cubby holes and hide the lunchlady and her abacus on one side. The dishwaher and linebacker may now stuff plates on the dish stacks or in a cubby hole. The lunch lady does her bit only on plates in particular cubby holes as directed by our friendly fishmonger. And, as benefit, we no longer need two stacks of dishes as one will now suffice.

So the fishmonger is yelling at the linebacker to run dishes in and out of the cafeteria, the dishwahser to run plates between the remaining stack of dishes and the cubby holes, and the lunchlady to do whatever it is she's doing with the plates on the other side. It's all a bit chaotic at this opint isn't it? But that's how these things work.

And as it's all about power and control, the flow of operations, and dictorial fiat of the fishmonger? You already know all manner of folks are drooling at the chance to make a social program out of it. Just as well you already know that they've no interest in actually doing the deed and being any of the cast of characters. Most certainly not the fishmonger as they smell a bit funk anyways, ya know?

No, they wish to install themselves between the fishmonger and the rest of the cast of characters. A happy vizier only here to help the fishmonger manage the chaos, you see. Some folks bought this readily despite the vizier sporting curly shoes and a monocle. And sound folks already realize nothing good can come from stuffing Commondant Klink in the middle of all this.

Which is where are dear fellow Wirth comes in. Not as a vizier mind you, because pointy shoes clash with monocles; it's all very bad fashion sense. Wirth comes in as the vizier to the vizier; with wingtips and a monocle. Despite that he's dead the current vizier's still genuflect to him and follow his advice. So now our process is such that the fishmonger yells at the vizier to get things done. And the vizier, for his part? Does whatever the hell he feels like doing and in accordance with the wishes of the departed Mr. Wirth.

The first consequence of all this was that the vizier pretends there is no stack of dishes. The fishmonger needn't worry about it at all. To such a degree that the vizier will firmly insist that there is no stack of dishes to begin with. Naturally, as this is a social program, you can make the safe guess right now that the vizier isn't really very good at managing things on his own however. And in truth the well-meaning vizier often has the dishwasher stack the dishes so high that the entire thing falls over and the plates shatter on the floor.

The rest is a bit Dead Parrot as the fishmonger starts asking why there's bits of stoneware all about while the vizier insists that there's no stack at all and if there was it would be just fine and ignore it all won't you please?

Now you've probably gotten the idea already that the vizier has taken the same tack with the cubby holes as well. Proving that you're already one up on the vizier as he doesn't tend to be real savvy managing the dishwasher whatsoever. Of course, since this is all the dishwasher's job, the vizier just has the dishwasher put the dishes on the stack. Which is all a bit of face saving kabuki that just exacerbates things.

And it wouldn't be so problematic if the stack of dishes was the one central piece to all of the rest. Without that stack of dishes there is no computer and there is no stack and it certainly didn't tip over and it's just a head cold anyways. But that's the current state of computer languages, our happy viziers, mucking about and making a mess of things.

Oh wait. Language and social programs? You didn't think you were escaping this without pulling in the undergrads did you? If we merely call it a 'language' then it certainly must be just like a language. In fact I bet, as I sit here in my linear algebra course, that I could go hit on the English Majors that don't shave their armpits! If only it weren't for those damn football jocks slipping out from behind the vizier.

So the comp sci geeks making a social program out of all this are busily trying to club the linebacker with a marble bust and set the field on fire. All for the sake of hitting on women that ride fish to school. This is a bit of a problem since the stack of dishes is the only way to get things done, and there's no such thing as a stack anyways, so we find that our intrepid fishmonger is abusing the linebacker to simulate a stack of dishes out on the football field.

These budding viziers are all wandering about clowning on that we really should stop abusing the linebacker for such things as he's going to get into heat stroke doing all this. And won't the fishmonger just let them manage the linebacker to ease up on things. If you're skeptical there's no need to be. They brought the Lit Crit club with them and some shoddy math explaining to all that a cast of highschool characters and a lunchlady with an abacus is just like Dutch verb conjugation if you squint just right.

The vizier's for their part, have been so successful that there's really no way around them at all in this day and age. No matter where you go in your attempt to program computers you are stuck up hard against one of these gatekeepers mandating Esperanto for Great Social Justice. That's just the way it is and why I cannot stand programming a whit. The solution, natch, is to kick them in the Djikstra and get on about creating a computer language that lets you get at all the things you need to get after without whispering in the dishwasher to much. But I'll be damned if it's going to be me as I'm pretty sketch on the proposition that I'll be better off dating hairy women that stuff their articles.

I found it much more pleasant to finish restoring my backups to the trashbin so I have more time to peel apples.