Aggravations Eugen Bacic Presentation @ B-Sides Ottawa September 5, 2014 1
How I Feel Irritated Aggravated Annoyed Tired Stunned Stupefied 2
Why? After 30+ years in IT I’ve noticed that we don’t seem to have learned anything We use an OS from the 60s We write software like it’s the 70s Our systems are stupidly fragile And we care more about hardware than information Because we’re still doing everything as though resources are expensive 3
Examples of our Idiocy Password Expiry & Length One Ring Mentality Saving Project “Management” Simple vs Complex Object Oriented Programming Lasagna Code Code Density Shareholder “value” Then & Than 4
Password Expiry & Length Why, exactly, do passwords expire? I mean, why? There is NO empirical evidence that changing your passwords is a good idea Yet IT & security departments force you to Has your bank PIN ever expired? And how long is it? Think about it... 5
One Ring Mentality Why do so many adhere to the “One language to rule them all” mentality? You don’t build a house with just one tool Why would you build complex applications/solutions with a single language? Why does our industry have a fear of multilingual solutions? 6
Saving Why do we think disk space is “precious” or “expensive”? It hasn’t been since the 80s Drives are insanely big Why do we need to manually save at all? Why don’t apps and operating systems save all the time? Or track provenance? Or geomatic information Or ..... 7
Project “Management” Email as the primary tool? MS Project? Excel? Disjointed toolsets? It’s 2014 and we’re managing projects like it’s 1950! Hell, we’d manage them better if we didn’t use the aforementioned tools and reverted to paper! 8
Simple vs Complex Confusing “simplistic” with “simple”. When you start looking at a problem and it seems really simple, you don’t really understand the complexity of the problem. Then you get into the problem, and you see that it’s really complicated, and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That’s sort of the middle, and that’s where most people stop... But the really great person will keep on going and find the key, the underlying principle of the problem -- and come up with an elegant, really beautiful solution that works. -- Steve Jobs 9
Object Oriented Programming This has probably put computer science back 50 years Worst idea ever Has no basis in reality and runs contrary to what a computer is: a means by which you can implement mathematics Functional is the ONLY way to go ... as we’re finally seeing courtesy of multi-core processors and the big data problem 10
Lasagna Code What’s with all the layers of abstraction? How much is enough? Abstractions are great ... to a point But over used they suck resources and are mega-confusing And result in code bloat! 11
Code Density Bugs per kloc has remained pretty constant But we seem hell bent on writing more code, not less (OOP anyone?) We have languages that are denser, that exhibit the same number of bugs per kloc -- but because they’re denser, you need fewer lines of code which means ... fewer errors for solving the same solution Some languages offer 10:1, even 100:1 advantages! But do we use those languages? No. Because “they’re hard”... 12
Shareholder Value Could there be anything more stupid? Shareholder “value” What value does a shareholder bring? Not much if any You might be familiar with this guy. He knew that it’s all about customers: - no customers, no company - no company, no value, period Focus on the customer! 13
Then & Than Had to add this It drives me NUTS Than is a comparative Then is an indication of sequence: this then that Just because the spell checker didn’t flag it doesn’t make it right! Argh... 14
Thank You The above are my own personal opinions, thoughts and observations. If there’s time, you may ask questions or violently disagree. As a final thought, I leave you with one from a far greater man than I: Pope Francis to the rich (paraphrased): Quit being dicks to the poor! 15
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