Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes, some things are important to me. It is usually a mistake to extend that importance to another person.

The idea hit me. This is IMPORTANT! I will dig into this topic. I will expand it in many ways.

Me: Hey, look at the results of my analysis. I have looked at all the details in all these dimensions. Look what I discovered.

Other Person: With a blank expression looking at the numbers on the screen. Silence.

Me: These findings are important. See how they affect the outcomes?

Other Person: More silence.

Me: Given this, you should understand how important my work is to you.

Other Person: Even more silence. Finally, “Can you start at the beginning and tell me why I want to know any of this.”

Me: Because it is IMPORTANT.

Other Person: Can you start at the beginning and tell me why I want to know any of this.

Me: Silence.

The meeting ends in mutual silence.

Sometimes it simply wasn’t important to the other person. I should ask. I should do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

One of the greater challenges is to continue what was started on the other side of an event.

We have the best intentions. Let’s work on topic A. Topic A is important. Topic A deserves all our attention. Here we go! Topic A is it.

Boom! Something happens. Sometimes it is merely going home, eating, sleeping, eating, and coming back to the office. A small canyon or event. Sometimes it is bigger. The weekend! Lots of activities and fun and all that. Monday morning comes: what were we doing? Something about an A or B or something? A bigger canyon or event.

Sometimes it is an event. “Hey, look at the news. See what happened? This changes our industry completely. Let’s react. NOW!” A even bigger canyon. A week or month later, “What was that Topic that was so important?”

Whatever it is and however large it is, there is a canyon, a gap, time or event or anything. We are on the other side. What was it that we were doing back on the first side?

Something derailed our best intentions and best efforts. How can we return to topic A? Should we return to topic A? What was topic A? Sigh.

Sometimes we just lose track of what we were doing. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Vibe coding shows us that coding is not all there is to developing software. No duh!

For many years I applied to jobs for software engineers and later what was called “developers.”

“How many recent years have you written Java?” was a common question (substitute any other language).

I tried to explain that coding or programming was about 10% of software engineering or developing software. The reply was blank stares. (See ya’ old man).

Fast forward a few years and we have vibe coding or whatever we call it this week. The current slate of chattering bots are spitting out code. The code works for the most part.

Computer programmers are obsolete! No one is majoring in Computer Science! It is all over! Those were the headlines for a day or three.

But wait. Recent discussions indicate that there is more to this than coding. There are the ideas, the requirements, the designs, maybe even specifications, and Heavens to Betsy (does anyone say that anymore?), there is testing. THERE IS MORE TO DEVELOPING SOFTWARE THAN CODING!

Hmm. What are the chances that I could revisit some of those recruiters who only cared about my recent Java experience. I could tell them, “See? I told you so.” Perhaps zilch. Never mind.

Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

This is interesting to me. Is it interesting to you?

interesting, adjective, something that attracts your attention, arouses your curiosity, or holds your interest because it is unusual, exciting, or engaging. It is highly subjective, meaning what is fascinating to one person may be dull to another.—Google search

The answer to my question is, “Probably not.”

See the definition above, the second part of the definition, the part I don’t like. This interesting thing is dull to you.

Also notice in the definition is the absence of “important.” Just because it is interesting does not mean it is important. And if it isn’t important to me, the chances of it being important to you are … pretty much zero.

Nevertheless, I will tell you about it. SEE THIS? WOW! Pardon my enthusiasm. Sorry to bother you. I’ll just casually turn and walk away. Maybe we will talk again tomorrow.

by Dwayne Phillips

All this computing power, datacenters, rising prices for hardware, land, water, electric power, etc. for what? To plan a party? This is utter waste. Come on, stop it!

Wired recently had an article on the full story of OpenClaw (is that the name they eventually decided to use?). That is the agent orchestrating thing that, according to Wired, revolutionizes something related to computing that needed revolutionizing.

Wired interviewed Peter Steinberger on how all this happened. One statement about Mr. Steinberger, “He figured that a digital assistant with access to your apps and data could automate a huge range of tasks. To plan a party, for example…”

To plan a party? To plan a party? TO PLAN A PARTY? Are you kidding?

Per the summary above, we are devoting all these resources so that software can run software can run software so someone can plan a party. Really? Utter waste.

There are much better things to do with all those resources than connect emails, calendars, recipes, etc. to plan a party. How about expeditions to some other planet or to the bottom of our oceans or simply to the middle of our great forests. And then there is medical research. Oh, that. Perhaps those problems are too difficult or too something-or-other so we plan a party.

Per the article, Mr. Steinberger strikes me as a smart and well-meaning persons. Perhaps he could have cited some other problem-solving examples. Some problems are interesting and pressing. That doesn’t make them worth the consumption of resources.

Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

The world of computing has turned upside down.

In 2001, Marc Andreesen noticed and noted, “Software is eating the world.”

Here I am to notice and note, “Hardware is the new software.”

Everyone wants to buy computer hardware. Prices of computer hardware are shooting upwards as demand far exceeds supply. If you make computer hardware, you own the world. Cancel your contract for $1. Open the bidding and get $10 for the same hardware.

Write it down. I think I said it first.

by Dwayne Phillips

Can’t use one of those AI tools in your workplace. Solve that problem.

Some wise person once said something about a hammer and a nail. It goes something like, “if the only tool you have is a hammer, the world looks like a nail.” This has something to do with another wise-person saying about, “There is no free lunch.”

Enough old, wise sayings. I face problems. I have resources. The resources are limited. What do I do?

Some of these current AI tools are useful. If the problem has to do with text, which many of my current problems do, these tools are quite useful. I have this AI tool and that AI tool. I work in this setting and that setting. Sometimes I am in a setting where my problem would be easy to solve if I had a tool that I don’t have. Rats.

Go back to the other setting, ask the AI tool how to solve the problem in the first setting with the tools available there.

For example, I have a problem in a setting, a tightly controlled office, that is solvable by writing a Java program. All I have, however, is Power Shell. How do I solve the problem with that? Another example: I have a problem I can solve with Excel. I don’t have Excel in this setting. How can I solve it with bash scripts?

And then I can extend this with: I have a problem that a group of degree-holding engineers can solve. I don’t have those people. What I have are 18-year-old high school seniors. How can I solve this problem?

Hmm. Use a tool to suggest tools. There may be something to this. All I have is a hammer. How do I make my problem look like a nail?

by Dwayne Phillips

These chattering bots merely predict the next N word(s). Software has been doing this for many years—nothing new here.

In the 1990s (yes, 30 years ago, I am that old), word processors started guessing what word we were trying to type. Some called that “auto complete.” It was nice. Not perfect, but nice. Sometime between then and now, we saw IDEs (integrated development environments). If any term ever needed an acronym instead, that one did.

Regardless, these IDEs did auto complete. Start typing the name of a function or variable, the software would look through of list, and show guesses at what it was I was typing. Well, that was convenient. It wasn’t perfect, but it helped me remember things that I new but were a bit murky.

Nowadays (does anyone still use that word?), we have these new chattering bots. They write essays and entire computer programs. WOW! New stuff! Great stuff!

New? Let’s see, in the 1990s, the word processors would predict the next one word. Today, the chattering bots predict the next one thousand words. What’s the difference? Just the difference between one and one thousand. It is N. N is bigger or smaller depending on various things that affect the outcome, but N is just N. Programming? We have gone from N is one to N is a larger number, but it is still N.

Why all the fuss? Why are school teachers at all levels in an uproar over students not learning this or that? It is just N words where is goes from zero to some arbitrary larger number. Same stuff. Nothing new here.

Let’s move on to something of more substance to discuss.

by Dwayne Phillips

It seems we haven’t learned much as we still read stuff that makes no sense.

A long time ago, I heard a political commentator read part of a political party’s platform. Parties used to do these platforms to inform everyone of what they were saying. The commentator would read a sentence and then remark, “This is amazing. All these words are in the dictionary!”

What did the words mean? Nothing. In my research on this phrase, I found, “Vagueness is a failure of intent. It is a deliberate, highly calculated use of perfect grammar to say absolutely nothing.”

Aha, use words (all of whom are in the dictionary) to say nothing.

Alas, I haven’t read any party platforms recently. Do they still do that? Some companies have their manifestos or policy statements, but I haven’t seen any platforms lately. Still, I read many things. I work in and around our Federal government. I have read too many things where most (not all, but most) of the words were in the dictionary. The documents said nothing.

Must we do this? Must we engage in this foolishness? Come on folks, we can do better. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Let’s turn these nouns into verbs. Let’s not.

We are going to modernize the application to optimize it and maximize our efforts. — Wrote someone who shouldn’t have been writing

In other words, we want maximum free time. Let’s make the application modern and optimal.

Turning a noun into a verb (I love this next part with all the fancy words) is called verbing or verbification. Some say that we nominalized the noun into a verb. Some say this is an anthimeria or functional shift (I really like that word, anthimeria). Of course these examples are affixations where we add the suffix -ize to the noun to make a verb.

Turning a noun into a verb is also called being lazy. There is a verb out there waiting to be used. Let’s find it and use it. We could also simply say what we want to say using the nouns as nouns. That’s what I did in the example above. Not enough long and fancy words? Oh well.

We can do better. Let’s do better.