(no subject)

[tvordlj]

It's a Monday kind of day when the milk comes out in chunks. The up side to this is (yes, there is an up side), the chunks go straight to the bottom of the cup and you can siphon off the top half into another cup because the milk hasn't distributed through the tea.

Seen in a shop window: purses (handbags) that look like 1. A shiny black patent leather laced up corset, an outline of a bat, a black coffin shape with bright red templar cross on it, bags with bright red roses and smiling skulls.

And for programmers and techical geeks everywhere, i offer you the following theories and laws, most of them true:

Osborn's Law: Variables won't; constants aren't.
Bilb's Laws of Unreliability:
1. Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.
2. Any system that depends upon human reliablity is unreliable.
3. Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.
4. Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probably cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done.

Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: there's always one more bug. (koff. True)

Troutman's Postulate (which seems to have been written some time ago)
1. Profanity is the one language understood by all programmers. (*koff*)
2. Not until a program has been in production for six months will the most harmful error be discovered.
3. Job control cards (!) that positively cannot be arranged in improper order, will be. (I haven't used these for years!!!!)
4. Interchangeable tapes won't. (we do use tapes for server backup, I think)
5. If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot will discover a method to get bad data past it. (Oh god yes)
6. If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.

Comments

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

I like point 5 about the bad data. In case it's of interest, here's an example with a program I wrote to process plain text files containing genetic information. The layout of the file (known as FASTA format) was as follows:

> genome name and other useful information, e.g. date
gatcatagacctttagccgtatct....

The user complained that the program would not process their data and declared the files invalid. I asked them to confirm that the format was correct and they claimed it was, even pasting the (correct) text into an e-mail to show me. When I asked them to send me the complete file it turned out to be a Word document with the correct text in it.

[tvor.livejournal.com]

Gah!!

[steer.livejournal.com]

I have most of these written around a very large mug styled after the old green and white line printer paper. I've been using that mug since the mid 80s at least so these sayings have a lovely comforting familiarity to me.

One on my mug but not on your list which you probably know is: "If builders made buildings the way programmers made programs, the first woodpecker would destroy civilisation."

[tvor.livejournal.com]

I think they do these days. We had one apartment building that was half-constructed collapse after a stiff wind!

I have another paper sign on my workstation wall "I'll go up and find out what they need. The rest of you start coding".

[zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com]

I've got one of those corset bags, although mine is matt. It's actually a bit annoying as it's deep but narrow so when things fall to the bottom they're difficult to retrieve.

[tvor.livejournal.com]

yes i can imagine you could lose things in it easily. I think the bag would suit you though!