Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

“Dot Notation” has some nice things going for it. Let us not, however, believe that it is object-oriented programming.

“We do object-oriented programming,” said proud practitioner, project manager, and recruiter. “Believe us,” they all added.

Silly me. I did believe these well-meaning folks. Time teaches.

class-name DOT function-name

See? Object-oriented programming (oop). Sorry. The above uses dot notation. It does not necessarily mean oop.

What is the object? What are the methods or functions or whatever we call the things that manipulate or operate the objects?

The two are not the same. The DOT is a nice thing. It allows us to say, “Hey, I’m talking about the blue addition function, not the red addition function. They are different.” The DOT does not mean oop. Too often we claim it does, that is convenient when a job recruiter asks us that veto-laden question. “Do you know oop?”

“Why yes,” I answer. “I first did oop in 1983.” (Which I did, and with real objects, not just dots.)

The other end of the phone line goes silent.

Consider, as an example, money. Let’s define a class for money. There are a few things we can do with money like add, subtract, divide, and various forms of input and output. Notice that we cannot multiply money (what is $3 x $4? $12$$ or something?).

Try to define this in one of the popular IDE’s in one of the popular programming languages. It doesn’t work well. The IDE tries to make window classes and such the foundation. That is a quick and easy way to make an application with windows, icons, menu, and pointing devices. oop? Sorry.

So folks, from someone who made all the mistakes and pounded my head to the wall, let’s not confuse the fundamentals. It is okay if a recruiter confuses the terms because that is what the checklist shows. The rest of us, however, should have it straight by now.

by Dwayne Phillips

Some of us have been here before. “AI” is hot again. Perhaps this time the future will be different from the past, but I doubt it.

I worked extensively in AI in the 1980s. What I see today is remarkably similar. This is due to what I believe is a gross misunderstanding of what AI is, where it has been, and probably where it is going.

At its most basic, AI is an area of research. Sometimes the research releases products into society and those products are no longer called AI, they are just something else we have and use. See, e.g., the thermostat. That is a machine that causes hot air to enter a cold room and cold air to enter a hot room. Whoa! That requires thought and judgement and all that stuff of AI.

In the 1980s, we did lots of AI research. One of the hot fields of the 1980s was the expert system. It was software that stored knowledge of a narrowly defined field and provided advice like “this has a high probability of being cancer” or “this is probably a problem with the carburetor.” Some of those systems went into general use, and no one thinks of them as AI.

Today we are doing lots of research in supervised learning in general and neural networks in particular. These techniques are decades old, but today we have the required computing, and that computing doesn’t cost much money. Hence, those techniques are “hot topics.”

Many of these supervised learning systems are being released into general use. Cars can park themselves between white lines. Maybe they don’t part so well if the lines are blue, but someone is working on that. Systems can recognize faces as long as we don’t have too many different persons come to our front door and the persons aren’t wearing funny clothes and the lighting is pretty good and a few more things.

Once these few more things are solved, we’ll have automatic door openers and we won’t consider it AI. Come to think of it, how about those door openers at stores and such that recognize when a person wants to enter, so they open the door. Once that was AI research, now its just something that opens the door when we approach it.

Research to everyday use. Some of us have seen it before, and some of us will see it again.

by Dwayne Phillips

Is this yet another boring meeting or a new opportunity to learn? Is this naive?

I attend meetings. In my former employment, I attended several meetings each day. My current employment has reduced that to several a week.

Most meetings are boring. They are inefficient. They are drudgery. Yuck.

Some meetings are opportunities to learn. Not kidding. They actually provide me an opportunity to walk away knowing more than I did when I walked in.

Boring or opportunity? Perhaps the difference between the two is in my mind. How do I approach meetings? That is all up to me. No one else controls that choice. The content of the meeting is not controlled by me, but my attitude and approach ARE controlled by me.

Perhaps this is naive. Perhaps not. Again, that is my choice.

by Dwayne Phillips

Our backgrounds don’t often determine our present.

I took one English class in high school. I took one English class in college.

Not much of a background in writing, huh? I have written half a dozen books (published) and over a hundred articles (published) as well as a hundred short stories (self-published) and all that.

How did my background lead to my present? I worked at it a little each day and continue to work at it a little each day.

The most important factor is that I wanted to write, and no one convinced me that my background was insufficient.

Now let’s pause a moment here: I have written and published and all that. I have not earned much money from all that. Doing something we want does not mean we can earn a living from it. It does, however, mean that we can do something we want.

What do we want to do, regardless of our background?

by Dwayne Phillips

Technology enables us to fake photos and videos. We can make anyone appear to say and do anything. Preventing such is quite simple.

Someone makes a deep fake video of me saying and doing something I neither said nor did. How do I disprove it?

“You know me. You know I wouldn’t say and do that.”

Simple, right? Yes, it is simple. It, however, requires time and effort to come to know a person and the types of things they say and do. We all create ourselves every day. We all create background in which we can say, “You know me.”

Funny how 200 years ago someone would walk into town and say, “My name is Fred Jones.” Everyone believed that because we had no records. Today we have records (photos and videos and voice recordings). Someone can show a video and say, “This is Fred Jones. Look at what he did.” The abundance or records replaced the dearth of them. We are still left to trust.

by Dwayne Phillips

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, …

A few words from a unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.

Lest we forget, which is our tendency.

by Dwayne Phillips

Some matters are certain in my mind. Others are a bit fuzzy behind a veil of doubt and cause me to argue with myself. There are times for both situations.

Some things are fuzzy in my mind. I am not certain about them. I have to argue with myself. I start a sentence, but pause after a couple of words and interject, “Yeah, that little situation is true, but you haven’t considered some other factors fully, and you really should…”

I argue with myself for a while. When things go well, I am able to argue enough to clear the doubt and bring the situation to certainty. Ah, certainty.

As with most things (and now I argue with myself about this), there are times and places for both.

I am sitting in a restaurant as I write this piece. The waiter arrives at the table and explains the menu. Certainty. I want certainty. No hesitation, no pause, tell me certainly what is on the fish in today’s special.

Yesterday my colleagues and I were discussing a new and complex situation. We needed pauses, interjections, considerations of other factors, and some arguments. We moved towards, but did not reach, certainty. There will be another day to resume that discussion.

Now to the lesson for the manager: there are times to doubt and argue and there are times for certainty. Recognize which is which and proceed accordingly.

by Dwayne Phillips

Is faster or slower better or worse? Or is it simply different timing and rhythm? And are there advantages to changing the timing and rhythm?

This past week I was in an office in a different city. Frustration, angst, and generally a lousy week of poor productivity. Just before the week ended, I understood the frustration, and then it went away.

It was all about timing and rhythm.

Andy Rooney used a manual typewriter until he died … in 2011. He tried and tried to use a computer, but it went too fast. The timing was different, and he couldn’t adjust to the timing, even though it was “better.”

My experience last week was “worse.” The computers were S L O W. I was three clicks ahead. I was not seeing what I expected. I was frustrated. This was worse.

I finally understood. Oh, the timing is different. Adjust to the difference in timing. This isn’t better or worse, it is different. Ah, that is better. This is okay. I actually had more time to think, more time to breathe. Some aspects of this timing were better. Perhaps I could adjust when I returned home to better thinking and better breathing. Perhaps I could adjust my timing and rhythm.

by Dwayne Phillips

Outsiders, drifters, those who aren’t like us. These are the persons we need the most.

We need people here and now who don’t belong here and now.

How else would we learn anything?

This is pretty simple. With a little thought, most of us would agree with it. Most of us, however, don’t practice it. We have plenty of “good” reasons why we don’t, but we don’t, and we lose the learning.

How much is learning worth to us? Please consider.

by Dwayne Phillips

Before embarking on a new database, or any new system, learn what it is we want and need.

“Let’s create a database to track this,” said an eager and well-meaning person.

“But,” interjected another well-meaning person, “do we know what we need or want or anything?”

My livelihood has been technology. Of course I will look to a technology to solve a problem. I, however, urge the use of time. Hence, I propose

The Longer than Necessary Law

Before building a database or other system “to help us keep track of things,” use a pencil and a clipboard to keep track of such things for a period of time that seems longer than necessary.

That period of time may be three months, six months, or even a year. Long pause (I have heard such many times). Really folks. If we don’t work at this for a long while, we won’t really understand what we need.

Who knows, maybe we can save a lot of precious resources by moving slowly.