Emails That Consume My Time #1

I routinely get emails of a "please teach me" nature. A recent one inspired me to this short play with 98% accuracy for all the meta-language involved in this general email exchange. This is it.

Actors:

       New guy (superficially technical):

       Old guy (technical by training because somebody has to actually DO things):

New guy email:

“Hi Old-Guy,

“Someone gave me your name, because they thought it’d be funny if I pestered you instead of them.”

“I have nothing to do but stand around and ask questions. Can you tell me everything you know so I can talk in these meetings and pretend of be of value? Hopefully this job is a just a stepping stone, so I’ll only be bugging you as often as I feel like it--till I get promoted.”

Old guy reply:

“Hi New-Guy,

“Sure. I have a degree in Computer Science and been studying everything I presently know the last 15 years, besides doing this job for the last 5. I can probably tell you enough to know where you’ll look intelligent in your meetings within an email or two. I assume you also are a computer scientist with my same background.”

Here is the technical documentation I put together years ago. It’s pretty obtuse, outdated, and intended to spin your head around with just enough missing data, that perchance you really did study it through you still wouldn’t have a clue.”

<1 GB word doc attached>

New guy: (next day)

“Hi Old-Guy,

“Thanks for that great documentation. I’ve read through it and think I pretty much understand it all.

“Attached is a request from my boss to pull some unheard-of-before datasets and format them into something simple enough for a monkey to understand in a PowerPoint. Would you mind pulling that together real quick… should only take you a minute or two. Appreciate it very much.”

“Also, would you mind being my secret lackey buddy, so whenever my boss asks me something I can get you to do it and make it look like I did it.”

<1 kb email attached>

Old guy: (while tying a rope around his neck)

“Hi New-Guy,

“Sure. Let me know whenever I can bury myself deeper into the pit of despair while advancing your career. It makes me feel better about my lack of appreciation and low pay.”

New guy:

"Hi Old-Guy,

"What it the ETA on that data report you are putting together for me?"

Old guy:

"Argggghhhhh..... <gag> .. <cough><cough>..... ...."

Searching for funny youtubes for programmers and found a few:

Spaghetti Code
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKzVKOso0fA&feature=related
Life Of A Programmer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl1rmaKFep4&feature=related
If programmers have make a plane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZq4sZz56qM&feature=related
The Truth About Programmers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re2Oh4rxN6w&feature=related
A real software enginner 2 part
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpJw9tWqokk&feature=related
How to deal with a programmer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWyH8t4fZ-4&feature=related


This one is funny and weird for a Dell commercial. Can't tell for sure if it's legit.

Dell Free Software commercial advertisement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfkucaGv0oA&feature=related

Programmers Were Funnier Back Then

I was searching for some old UNIX humor and smarfy literature that was almost a genre back in the 80's. It was mostly witticisms and observations of very smart people making fun of and trying correct for lame management efforts of software development in the period. Some of the out-growths from it were the X-Treme model of software dev cycle modeling and general Recursive style modeling contrasted to the old Waterfall methodology.

Many of us remember the horror stories of the millions of $$$ lost on failed big projects of that time and these guys were the analyzers afterwards. Well, I couldn't find any of the text only witty literature, but I found two simple funny sites I'd thought I share. At least one was funny. Didn't want you non-programmers to think geeks weren't funny people. :)

Building Better Software looks funny and possibly informative, but Top Funny Source Code Comments actually has some true programmer style wit from old days that I fondly remember so well.... even if you can't Google it up anymore. I'm still looking though and haven't given up.

Books for Programming your Computer and your Brain

O'reily Books and any software programming published books you might want are now offered online for only $22 a month. What a deal! I remember weekly going to the bookstore and agonizing over what $40 or $50 book I would buy that week. I ended up giving boxes away to Goodwill or the local library and still have boxes in the attic of technology books that are pretty much obsolete now, like dHTML, JAVA, old Hacker crap and XML/XSLT. Some of which have value I guess as classics maybe, but now 10 books a month for $22 or all you can get for $44 is nothing to spend for a diehard need-the-latest programming junkie.

Ownership is a thing of the past. Get what you need when you need it and that's all you need. Just do it. It's 2011 folks. Paper books is a thing of the past and knowledge is virtually free.

Speaking of computer books, what is the single most influential programming book? Don't know? Well find out or cast your vote.

Does anyone remember the "A New Kind of Science”? It supposedly was a total game-changer and paradigm shifter -just to throw out a few world changing clichés. It came out in 2002 by Stephen Wolfram and I've not heard a word about it since until coming across a project management website claiming to have the author's life changed from three books with this being one of them. The other two are old classics that conceptually I agree, the ideas break down old mental constructs, but the books themselves are essentially dull. They were entlighting maybe in the late '80s when I read them. But now, I could almost write a more enlightening read of Chaos theory and Complexity theory than James Gleick does in "Chaos: Making a New Science" and Waldrop in "Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos."

Still though, these are essential concepts to work into your psyche if you have the adaptive flexibilities still. (Most people lock in somewhere between 10 and 22 I think.) Better yet, I would just read Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics by Alfred Korzybski which has my vote for best overall paradigm busting, human engineering, Zen enlightening book. Of course Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is still probably worth reading to a young mind.

But you can get Korzybski's book free online.

By the way, I wrote Robert Pirsig a letter back in the early 90's I think--sending him a small manuscript I wrote that I thought at the time was parrellel in thought with ZAMM. He did write me back, explaining he gets too much fan mail to read it all, but yes he saw the parrellel of what I sent him. I never did publish that short piece of wisdom I wrote, but I guess I could have intro'd it with Pirsig's back-handed compliment.

Happy programming! Remember to feed your brain!