[Themaintainers] an oldie but a goodie of an article

[David Eddy]

Giovanni -

On Oct 11, 2019, at 5:46 AM, Giovanni Tirloni <giovanni.tirloni at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> I try to be more pragmatic, to surface the maintenance work that is done routinely (which is harder in startup types, but I digress) but in the end, I must admit there's more frustration than anything else. In my darkest moments, I wish a hacker would exploit a vulnerability we should have fixed but didn't prioritize. Or that systems will just crash, I'll be called in to fix them and people will know there's value in this work. More often than not, we'll instead have a "post-mortem" meeting to discuss what we're doing right and wrong, with the focus on the wrong.
> 
> In my profession, it's to say that when everything is working, nobody knows you exist. When things break, it's your fault. But I still love my work, despite all of this. The feeling of having everything running smoothly is very gratifying.

Unfortunately, humans being human, that sort of myopic, head-in-the-sand behavior is unlikely to change.


Perhaps you’re unaware that General Motors (in the US, in the 1950s?) did research "proving" seat belts were dangerous.  My 1960 Volvo PV 544 had better three-point shoulder seat belts than a 1985 Chevy with kludgy two-piece lap + separate shoulder belt rig.


Consider the until-then largest ever software maintenance project  —  Y2K  —  which while “predicted” as early as 1971 by Bob Bemer, a senior IBM engineer, did not stir action  —  dare I say panic?  —  until 25 years later.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Bemer

Even worse for people who do appreciate the importance of maintenance, the cubicle dwellers of the world did such a good job ensuring nothing significant visibly happened, airplanes did not fall from the sky at the stroke of midnight 1999-12-31 23:59 & the world continued its normal travels around the sun.


As an experiment today, ask people if they believe Y2K was a hoax perpetuated by greedy consultants or if it was real.


Give them this test (fits very nicely on front & back of a 3” x 5” note card):

- given this number progression:  … 96, 97, 98, 99…?

- what is the next two digit number?

Disturbingly few people  —  even so-called “ software engineers”  —  can answer correctly.  It’s fun to watch their facial contortions.

__________________
David Eddy
deddy at davideddy.com





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