Bradezone

The difference between my line of work—software development—and others is the fact that the consequences of imperfections are far more drastic though they are just as inevitable. Just about any other occupation affords one the opportunity to recover from mild screw-ups: a dentist can mistakenly scrape your gums, an actor can stumble over a line, or a dump truck driver can blow a tire. But with a little improvisation and ingenuity, these folks can amply recover and still accomplish the task at hand.

The experience of the software developer is a bit more vexatious. The hope is that we (or our IDE) will notice a mistyped letter or slightly flawed logic before we unleash imperfect software on the masses, but unfortunately “bugs” are a fact of life. Witness the number of major companies such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft that release software tagged with the word “beta”—a term that in the world of software programming I would describe as politically correct. It absolves the software provider of responsibility and is roughly an open admission that things might not work as intended.

With computers, everything is black and white, ones and zeroes, pure logic. This fact actually appeals to most programmers and provides us with a constant challenge as we write software. But without shades of grey, we are bound to continue producing otherwise exceptional products that are ever so slightly tainted by the stain of human error. The average citizen has used enough software at this point that they almost expect problems to occur, and as a result software developers are often viewed with some degree of suspicion. What can we do about this problem of error-prone software, and how do we improve? Certainly testing mechanisms are already in place on development platforms, but even then we are limited by our inability to foresee all the possible scenarios that might result in errors. Testing techniques have improved, but so too has the complexity of software skyrocketed, leaving us in roughly the same position.

The harsh reality is that this problem will never disappear completely. I anticipate that significant strides will be made via new automated testing methods, new programming languages, and simply better documentation and training. But as a software developer I know all too well that my mistakes, however scarce, will always be prone to unveiling themselves in a most garish fashion and to my enduring chagrin.

Even now I feel the sting of defeat. Oh sure, I won my ESPN fantasy basketball league handily—an impressive feat given my previous lack of success with this particular sport. ESPN will be mailing me a t-shirt for my efforts, probably by the time we are using automated hover-cars for transport. But never has winning a fantasy sports league felt so empty. You see, I managed to finish 4th overall in the universe on ESPN’s final leaderboard. This would rank me squarely outside consideration for the major prizes, bestowed solely upon the top 3 players. So any hopes of winning $500, $1100, or even $3000 flew out the window the moment the NBA regular season ended.

Oh, but it gets worse. For those of you familiar with rotisserie leagues, you know that each team earns points based on how well the actual players do in the actual statistical categories of the sport. As you can see, my team’s weakest category was free throw percentage, in which I trailed the next player by 13/10000th of a point. Yes, lucky number .0013 indeed. If I had managed to squeak out the victory in this lone category by simply hitting a handful more free throws, not only would I have ranked in the top three overall, I would have WON THE WHOLE FREAKING SHOW. Not that I am bitter or disappointed or bitterly disappointed, or what not.

Anyway, if you check out my team stats and decide that it deserves some sweet loot, you are more than free to tap that friendly Paypal button on my site and let me know your feelings via cash. In the meantime, I would like to thank Shawn Marion, Vince Carter, Pau Gasol, Marcus Camby, Carlos Boozer, Lamar Odom, Chauncey Billups, Ricky Davis, Jason Richardson, Mo Williams, and the other bit-players for their magnificent efforts. But man, y’all need to learn to hit some free throws.

So you may have heard that Amazon created this weird new website called Askville, wherein users ask questions that will hopefully be answered by fellow users knowledgeable of that topic. Feeling wacky, I posted a question of my own and promptly forgot about it. A week or so later I receive an email informing me that I got some replies, and indeed I did—along with a forum discussion that has apparently become one of the more popular ones on the site.

It’s nice to see there are other people who are willing to have a bit of cheeky fun with these random web startups.