April 2007 - Posts

Lights... Camera... Arrrgg!
28 April 07 07:52 PM | Earl Beede | with no comments

There seems to be a third thing certain in life besides death and taxes. That thing seems to be the fact that the moment some moron uses the product or software that I have been working on, they are going to do something stupid. My brilliant work of pristine intellectual purity which functions just the way I want it to will behave like a brakeless car in the hands of a drunken driven; it is going to crash.

I don't know about you but when I release a product I have been working on, I want it to work. I want it to work so well that people say things like, "How did the human race survive without out this. Why, there has been other attempts at doing this, but this, oh my, it really puts everything thing else to shame." Of course, I don't tell anyone I want them to say that. I also admit they probably won't say that because I know there is some moron out there and they will do something to make me go "Arrrgg!"

I often try to outwit the morons. You'd think it would be easy. I develop the product. I test it all sorts of ways. I try to think of the things that the morons will do and make it so that they can't. It is much like the amateur play I recently was in. For the two public performances to raise money for a charity, we rehearsed for months. Some of the other cast members didn't remember their lines the same way the playwright wrote them nor the same way more than once. To deal with that, I came up with witty and clever things to say when they wondered into the script of moron creativity. Then the big night arrived. Lights came on, curtains went up, and Arrrgg! I forgot one of my lines. I became the moron.

It is somewhat similar with my projects. More often than I desire, what I get is something like, "Well that is nice, but did you know that 'X' is not working?" A line somewhere was forgotten. You would think I would be more prepared for an initial Arrrgg! There is usually at least one. A smarter person may even try to get to the Arrrgg! as quickly as possible to get it over with. Maybe that is one of the best things of developing in short increments. You get the Arrrgg!s more quickly and they tend to be smaller. Increment, moron... uh, demo, Arrrgg!; increment, demo, Arrrgg!; increment, demo, Arrrgg! Of course in that situation we don't actually say "Arrrgg!", we say, "Oh, we will put that in the backlog (you moron) and you can prioritize it."

We can't, however, rely on short increments alone to solve the Arrrgg! problem. I know that if my play's cast had not rehearsed, it wouldn't have been just one Arrrgg! but a complete disaster. We had to do some up front work. Even improv groups work together for a long time before they are any good. So some amount of planning, some amount of up front work is required to at least limit the Arrrgg!s. Can I get the Arrrgg!s to zero with enough up front planning? Has there been a moratorium on the making of morons?

The Arrrgg!, therefore, is here to stay. The only question left then is, when do you want to experience your Arrrgg! and how big do you want it to be?

Filed under: humor, increments, defects, planning

What's In a Name?
20 April 07 08:45 AM | Earl Beede | 1 comment(s)

We name just about everything. We name pets, cars, rocks, people, projects, releases, documents, uh, well change that. We name everything. So you think that with all that practice naming everything we come across that there would be a best practice. Somewhere, somebody probably has completed some sort of study that shows 90% satisfaction with naming things using the "ABBA" method. If there is, I don't know of it. (Side note: now I have ABBA songs running through my head, bad selection of a name Earl, baaaddd selection)

It is my understanding that names were once upon a time not trivial things. Names told you everything you need to know about a person. A blacksmith was called, "Smith". My possible distant relation, the Venerable Bede, was named that since Bede, I am told, meant scholar. He was, though I can't say the same thing for myself. It hasn't always worked that way though. When Moses asked the burning bush to identify itself, it says its name is I AM. Basically, a, "I don't play by your rules," kind of response.

If your name was associated with a good family, often good things happen to you (ask those Hilton folks). People wrongly accused or repenting to a new way of life often want to "clear their name". Some Orthodox folks celebrate a namesake day when you happen to be named the same name as saint. And the Orthodox have a lot of saints (though I am pretty sure there isn't a saint Earl). Remember when we had the musician formally known as Prince? I guess he got tired of trying to book dinner reservations over the phone and changed his name back... to Bob (his parents didn't really name him Prince, did they?).

For most of us, names are pretty serious business that should demand a pretty serious method of creating them. But there isn't one. I have been personally involved in the naming of three children, a dog, several series of conference rooms, websites, this blog, and have acted as a consultant to several others. I have brainstormed. I have culled records of dead relatives, or in the case of Construx's current conference rooms, types of rain. I have tried to bring out an essential quality of the object being named. I have flat made up something that sounded nice. I have even used the Three Strikes practice that created a fine name that those not involved in the process really understood.

I think that names today probably mean more about the namer than the named. They talk about how we approach things, what we care about. Sure, if done well will help us identify and understand the item being named. Or, in the case of things like Peace Keeper Missile, intentionally not understand it. A name reflects how the namer sees the item being named and how the namer wants the world to see it. It is more a mirror to our own wants and desires than the item being named.

Something to think about next time you name that project (is Pointless Crap taken?) or your blog.

Filed under: humor, names