ChrisKnight – Page 46 – The Wacky World of Chris Knight

2008/02/272008/07/22

If we only had a pair of ruby slippers

Tonight was yet another in a long series of failed new architecture deploys at one of my clients. To those of us with experience in the field, this was no surprise. At two something in the morning, the CTO said “Why couldn’t tonight have been boring?”

Ever the person to tell the emperor that he is naked, I replied: “Well, when you push code that has never made it through a two hour live test into a production environment you have to expect it to blow up.”

Being the least experienced person in the room, the CTO replied: “That is just the pessimist in you.”

Damn… Gotta show the emperor a mirror… “No, that is the part of me that has run several development projects from beginning to end, and that used to lead a QA team. That’s the part of me that saying that.”

I don’t think he was looking at me as he actually said: “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

I give: “Last I heard the great and powerful wizard of oz was no longer on the throne.”

While it is true that coding can be an art, the steps used to test and verify code are in fact a science. You can build test cases. You can apply logic. You can reproduce results. It wouldn’t be Computer Science if you could just wish it didn’t have to be that way, and click your ruby slippers together chanting “this code will run” three times. Arthur C. Clarke said “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, and by that extension anyone who thinks they can wish code into running is not particularly advanced themselves…

-Chris

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2008/02/212008/07/22

Religion != Science

Galileo and Copernicus struggled for naught. For all our scientific progress, for all the world that we do understand, we have proven ourselves again and again to be little more than ignorant savages looking up at the stars and calling the random patterns of stars ‘Gods’.

Science and Religion should have the same separation as ‘Church and State’. They are different realms, with little that one can offer the other. Religion is about faith, belief and interpretation; it does not require, or suffer, reason. Science is about observation, repeatable tests, logical analysis, and it does not suffer guesses. There is little room for overlap, and really that is the way it should be.

Needless to say, Religions benefit from the separation of Church and State. Imagine if churches had to prove there is a Heaven in order to meet the Truth in Advertising laws? Likewise, they benefit from not having to pay takes on the ‘donations’ they request (tithe) from their parishioners. (Isn’t tithe another word for tax?)

On the flip side of that separation, the state should not have to teach superstitious (like ghosts and luck, you can’t ‘prove’ religion) dogma as ‘science’. The state should be restricted to teaching things that can be proven.

Is that too much to ask?

The Gradebook | Tampabay.com – St. Petersburg Times and tbt
And the decision is …

Evolution officially is a “scientific theory” in Floridas curriculum.

The State Board of Education narrowly adopted new science standards with the added language, with some members saying the decision will leave the idea open to questions by students, while others contended the wording is a clear attempt by creationists to water down science instruction.

The vote was 4-3, with Chairman T. Willard Fair and members Linda Taylor, Phoebe Raulerson and Kathleen Shanahan in support.

…

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2008/02/072014/05/25

Republican Welfare – Hell is Frozen

Senate Adds Aged, Vets to Stimulus Bill
People who paid no income taxes but earned at least $3,000 — including through Social Security or veterans’ disability benefits — would get a $300 rebate.

If you didn’t pay taxes, it’s not a rebate; it’s welfare.

Republican Welfare.

George W. Bush, my hat is off to you. Nobody else in the history of the US, not even Nixon, has done as much as you to destroy the Republican party as you. Too bad your efforts are doing the same to the once great United States of America.

-Chris