chicken and egg (was Re: Augury and ...)

[Bill Vermillion]

Putting quill to paper and scribbling furiously on Mon, Jul 26 16:48  
Ron Kracht missed achieving immortality when he said: 

> Fairlight wrote:

> >I think an example would certainly help, as I'm having
> >trouble accepting your premise without one. I'm not usually
> >unimaginative, but I'm either missing your point entirely,
> >or being a dullard on this particular issue. Toss me a bone,
> >here.

> It will a very small bone since (1) this is way off topic
> and (2) I'm in the midst of one project that is already an
> interruption of another project where I am way behind schedule,
> (3) given your discussion of "fine enough granularity" I'm not
> sure anything less than a full blown essay will explain the
> difference.

> The entire world is not digital - sometimes it really is analog.

The world has always been analog until you go to the sub-atomic
{quantum} level.

It is the human animal that likes to categorize things so they can
understand it.   They like averages, things fitting into precise
packages, etc.   And in cases it has been shown that measurements
shown as anomolies and not fitting the averages, were important
data not be ignored.

...

> The point at which something stops being one thing and becomes
> another is not always clearly defined.

And except for things we manufacture nothing is clearly defined.
Nature doesn't work that way - no matter how much we wish it would.

> I know I'm going to regret the following example because for
> people who are inclined to think in black and white rather than
> shades of gray it still will not make sense. I will not address
> those who think in color except to say that they need to lower
> their dosage :-)

Black and white is surely the digital yes|no  on|off.  Often when
someone tries to take the human element out of something and go
with a purely mechanical/digital device, bad things, including
fatalaties have happened, because the real world is not digital.

....

> Have you every been through an iterative design process where
> the final design bore very little, if any, resemblance to the
> original design? Perhaps on a project of your own, perhaps
> for a customer who doesn't quite know what he wants but will
> know it when he sees it? I did one of those 20 years ago for a
> good friend. I even gave him a special rate. By the time I was
> done I realized that (1) I would have done better working at
> McDonald and (2) always refer friends to someone else who 'is
> better at the kind of programming you need'.

I've found that never doing work for friends on computers in a
business environment is a very good practice.   It helps keep your
friendship.  Usually that is worth far more than any money you
would have garnered from them.

Bill
-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com