Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

The expertise of the expert judgers is never in question. That is because they are usually wrong. Nevertheless, they never stop judging.

Microsoft recently announced that they are ending support for the Microsoft Windows Phone operating system. The what? Does anyone remember that? Does any one have one of those phones that still works? I guess there are a few out there.

Back in 2007, the senior executives where I worked constantly told us engineers, who weren’t executives even though many of us were “senior,” that we needed to learn everything there was to know about the Microsoft Windows phone thing. Microsoft was never wrong. Microsoft’s phones would be a major player in everything, and we needed to be with it. That, what was it called, oh, yes, “Android” thing was yet another Google experiment to be ignored as it would quickly pass away.

Well, ahem, history shows that the senior executives were wrong. And, oh, by the way, those same senior executives judged the judgment and expertise of us engineers.

Hmm, not a good track record of judgment. Hmm, still judging everyone else. The results were predictable and predicted.

Fast forward to 2019, we have this company called Neo (neo.com). That bunch of expert judgers is going to look at high school students—yes 13 to 18 years of age—and decide who among them will be expert engineers. Neo will then connect those young-but-one-day experts to current experts for grooming or something.

Of course some of these identified-at-13 folks will become successful engineers. Why not? They will be groomed by current experts who will open doors, impart wisdom, and do all sorts of things that help a youngster grow.

Yet still, who makes Neo a good judge of young talent? Machine learning?

No, the expert judgment of expert judgers is never questioned. The expert judgment of expert judgers will continue to fail the vast majority of the time in spectacular fashion.

Those youngsters—especially the ones like me who went to the wrong high school in the wrong place at the wrong time—will move through life on the more difficult path. Some will persevere and become “good engineers” whose abilities are judged by the expert judgers who will tell them that Company X is never wrong and Company Y is just fiddling around and…

by Dwayne Phillips

I read that some “young people” don’t stay in their jobs long. They don’t want to waste their life in something they dislike. Enjoyment often requires time.

No job is enjoyable the first month. Or day or week or six months.

When in a new job, I don’t understand what is really happening.
I don’t understand how I can do something that makes a difference. Nothing makes sense. I am wasting my life, and there is no use doing something I don’t enjoy.

Really?

If I don’t stay long enough, I will never have a “good job,” i.e., one where I make a difference daily and want to “go to work” in the morning.

Funny, in my experience at least, how I learn what is happening, what difference anything makes, and how I can change things for the better. Funny, at least for me, how this takes time. Sometimes six or nine months of time to learn these things.

Perhaps if I were smarter, I would be able to understand all this the first day and decide if I am to leave or how I am to make a difference. For me, at least, I ain’t that smart.

by Dwayne Phillips

We tend to allow others to use us freely. A simple example.

About every ten years I buy a new automobile. Yes, I am “cheap,” and yes, today’s automobiles are built well enough to drive efficiently for ten years or more. After buying my last automobile, I arrived at home and noticed a sticker permanently adhered to the rear end of the car. How did that happen?

What I should have done: noticed the sticker on my car advertising the dealership before driving away in the car. Then had a conversation:

Me: Excuse me, please remove your advertisement sticker from my car.

Dealer: Oh, we put that on all the vehicles we sell.

Me: Excuse me, I looked at the bill of sale, our contract. I don’t see anything in the contract where I agree to advertise your dealership.

Dealer: (silence)

Me: Now, if you would like me to be a rolling advertisement for you, let’s have that discussion as I am interested in you paying me, let’s start the discussion at, $100 a month for the years I drive this car.

Dealer: (more silence)

We use social media—no cost. Then we are surprised to learn that the social media company monitors our viewing to sell ads. We buy products, at low prices, that sit in our homes and listen and watch what happens. That collected information is sold. We are surprised. We have a newspaper subscription. We are surprised to learn that the newspaper sells our information to … the stories continue.

Let’s look at the contract—all of it, especially the little print in the user’s agreement. We don’t have to let others use us at no charge. We can sell, or not, our services.

by Dwayne Phillips

Great ideas have a different and necessary perspective when I look at another person and say the words aloud.

The man with 30 years experience and accolades as an expert in his field sat across the table from me. He looked me in the eye and, before he opened his mouth, had that expression saying, “I can’t believe I thought this was a good idea.”

He paused, grinned a little, and told me that the idea didn’t seem so good now, but he told me what it was. His expression was correct. It was an awful idea, but he didn’t realize it until that key moment sitting across the table.

(1) I write it on a napkin. I write it in my journal. I write it on the white board. I polish it in a word processor.

(2) I look another person in the eye, open my mouth, and say the words aloud.

Actions (1) and (2) are different—vastly different. I must do (2) before I take it seriously. I should do (2) before I spend large amounts of resources on the idea. That is prudent. Step (2) is essential.

All the great thoughts appear differently when we look at another person and say the words aloud.

by Dwayne Phillips

AI, as we have it today, is a software tool. Like all software tools, it should aid persons in their jobs, not replace persons.

We have all these artificial intelligence programs everywhere. At least some persons claim such. What we have are software tools. The software can find some images that maybe have a rose in them or steer a car down a well-defined and lighted roadway. Artificially intelligent? I don’t think so.

Regardless of definitions, AI is replacing persons and taking their jobs. Any manager that replaces a person with a piece of software is taking huge risks. I strongly advise against such.

Despite all the excitement, our AI software today is merely a tool. Tools aid persons in jobs. Open a million jpg files and copy the one hundred that might have a rose to a directory for a person to examine. That is helpful. That doesn’t replace the person.

Open a million social media posts and copy the one hundred that might be hate speech to a place for a person to read. That is helpful. That doesn’t replace the person.

Depend on the software to do the job start to finish without a person. That is foolish and takes on unacceptable risk. Now your CEO is sitting before Congress with two dozen lawyers charging $1,000 an hour to keep the CEO out of jail.

What we have done is replace the analyst with two dozen lawyers. The AI software didn’t save anything.

by Dwayne Phillips

Want to know what computer software is doing? Go to the source of knowledge regarding it.

I run a bash script daily to put my Internet viewing log online. (See here.) This script runs through a series of folders, us old guys still call them directories as in the Unix days, copies files, runs a (secure) File Transfer Protocol, another old-guy thing, and puts it all online.

I don’t remember the details of all this. If I want to refresh my memory, I look at the text of the script, a.k.a., the source code. It lists each individual, tedious step that I have the computer do for me everyday. That is why I have written a computer program of sorts—this is repetitive, tedious, and error prone.

At my current job, I find things in the software that don’t quite make sense. One of the programmers will often tell me, “Let’s look at the source code to see what we are actually doing.” Such readings of the source code often bring surprises. “This is what we are doing,” he’ll tell me. “Is that what we are supposed to be doing?” he then asks.

And now we have the title of this post. The source code, as we programmers have called it for many years now, bears that name for a reason:

the source code is the source of all knowledge regarding a computer program

If there is any question about what a computer program is doing, go to the source. Read the source code and learn. Forget the documents, forget the conversations, forget all else. The source code is the definitive answer, i.e., it is the actual definition of the software.

It is fortunate that we have the source code.

It is unfortunate (in my humble opinion) that in many other parts of life, there is no source code. There is no actual definition, or we don’t want to reread the definition. See, for example, marriage vows.

by Dwayne Phillips

We make mistakes. We make mistakes at a given rate of X mistakes per unit of work. Look at all the work, find all the mistakes, learn, and change direction.

We make mistakes.

We make X mistakes per page.

The more pages the more mistakes.

In a bad situation? Sit and read and read and read everything. There are mistakes in the pages. Read it all. Find the mistakes, learn, and change direction.

by Dwayne Phillips

The most difficult thing about the agile and similar approaches is the zero-th step.

“I’m aren’t sure about this.” Let’s take small steps and learn as we go. Let’s not reach too far and make too costly a mistake.
This is the agile manifesto stated another way. There is nothing new here; we all always knew this.

The trouble is, we have to start with the zero-th step. That step is when I stand in front of everyone at every level of the organization and say, “I’m not sure about this.”

And sometimes some of us cannot say that in some situations. It is an admission of imperfection and inadequate knowledge. Some organizations live in some fairly tale land where such are not allowed. If you work in on of those fairy tale land places, if at all possible, L E A V E.

by Dwayne Phillips

There are several places I can always find an interesting person for an interesting and educational conversation. One is outside any neighborhood elementary school.

My grandfather on my mother’s side outlived his wife by 20 years or so. That was and still is unusual. After a year alone, he needed a reason to wake in the morning.

He found a job at a school crossing. For about 20 years, he woke in the morning, had breakfast, shaved, dressed, put on a “uniform,” and went to an elementary school. When children came to the street crossing, he pressed the button on the traffic light pole. When the lights changed and the safe-to-walk signal lit, he walked out into the street so the children could cross.

After morning duty, he went home, ate lunch, took a nap, and went back to the school for the afternoon session. He did this everyday for about 20 years without missing a single day to illness or doctor’s appointment or anything. A generation of children needed him, and he needed them.

And he always had time to speak with the children and with any adult who wanted to learn about life and raising children (he had raised six children in poverty—never knew there was a depression at the time).

There is a woman who does this job at the elementary school a few blocks from my home. Everyday—morning and evening—she stands at a corner wearing her uniform and holding a stop-yield sign. She helps children and parents cross the street. She knows the name of every parent, student, and sibling that crosses at her corner everyday. She never misses for illness or anything else. I think she needs the children as much as they need her.

This past week I was in Louisiana for the holidays. I went running each morning and met a gentlemen wearing a uniform, holding a stop-yield sign, and helping parents, children, and siblings cross the street.

I stopped. We had an interesting conversation. I learned much.

Do you want to have an interesting conversation with an interesting person and learn a few things? Go to a neighborhood elementary school. There will be a crossing guard somewhere there. They will be happy to oblige.

by Dwayne Phillips

How can we communicate better? First, let’s try to communicate better.

How can I communicate better? How can I say this better?

Look for a better word

Look for a better word or two

Look for a better phrase

Look for a better arrangement of thoughts

Look for a better sentence

Look for a better title

Look for a better tone

Are we starting to notice a trend here? Try harder. Look further. Try to be better. It isn’t all that complicated.