It almost came out like a melancholy poem... Well anyway:
Writing a new programme... is like building a machine.
From scratch.
Out of matchsticks and paperclips.
And you build this massive machine, and some of it has never been built before and you just have to remember how it’s done because you can’t draw; and no one else has ever attempted it.
And you think you’re finished and you step back to admire it, flip the little “on” switch you made and it whirs and clanks and bits spin around and then it prints out a bit of paper with a picture of a duck.
And what you really wanted, was a list of the names of former US presidents...
but you have a duck.
And then you think... Why is it a duck? What part is making it a duck? Is it the printer? Or the bit that sends the instructions to the printer? Or the bit looking in the encyclopaedia? Maybe it got confused and looked up ducks. Or maybe it’s not even looking in the encyclopaedia and it’s just found a duck photograph inside the leaves of a book, and used that?
So you ask it some questions. But all it can do is print out numbers. The numbers tell you about what it’s trying to do, but it’s a machine and so it’s very bad at explaining.
And you take it apart, and you look at every piece...
and eventually...
after hours...
you find the problem.
You put a toothpick in the wrong place.
ONE toothpick....
and you move it 6mm to the left, and you see from the numbers that... ahah! It’s looking at the correct pages now! No more ducks!
And you put it all back together,
and flip the switch,
and you get a picture of a hat
Writing a new programme... is like building a machine.
From scratch.
Out of matchsticks and paperclips.
And you build this massive machine, and some of it has never been built before and you just have to remember how it’s done because you can’t draw; and no one else has ever attempted it.
And you think you’re finished and you step back to admire it, flip the little “on” switch you made and it whirs and clanks and bits spin around and then it prints out a bit of paper with a picture of a duck.
And what you really wanted, was a list of the names of former US presidents...
but you have a duck.
And then you think... Why is it a duck? What part is making it a duck? Is it the printer? Or the bit that sends the instructions to the printer? Or the bit looking in the encyclopaedia? Maybe it got confused and looked up ducks. Or maybe it’s not even looking in the encyclopaedia and it’s just found a duck photograph inside the leaves of a book, and used that?
So you ask it some questions. But all it can do is print out numbers. The numbers tell you about what it’s trying to do, but it’s a machine and so it’s very bad at explaining.
And you take it apart, and you look at every piece...
and eventually...
after hours...
you find the problem.
You put a toothpick in the wrong place.
ONE toothpick....
and you move it 6mm to the left, and you see from the numbers that... ahah! It’s looking at the correct pages now! No more ducks!
And you put it all back together,
and flip the switch,
and you get a picture of a hat
