Krank

Today we learn the German word for ill, sick: 'KRANK' - which somehow describes so well the way that I feel right now. Actually the way WE feel right now. As it is, Qualiteers like to do everything together, and Miska also got ill a day after me. It also looks like it is not a normal flu, so you probably won't be hearing much from us during this week either. We have to follow the

"Doctors orders:"

- Antibiotics ...taken
- Stay in bed ...almost there
- No computer ... oh, oops... bye!

Carnival report postponed

Virpi wanted to report from the carnival, but due to illness (she has a fever of 39 degrees centigrade, that's over 102 degrees Fahrenheit) she can't.

She wanted me to instead present a simple quiz. What happened to Virpi in the Carnival on Monday? Did she
a) lose her purse, or
b) burn her pantyhose, or
c) fall off a table dancing, or
d) all of the above?

A Normally Perfect Week

The week in Finland has gone quickly by. On Monday morning, I ran errands in downtown Tampere, met Ville for lunch and agreed to meet him on Thursday again for some "mule" assignment. In the afternoon, I started going through the comments for Chapter 5 of my Tick-the-Code book, couldn't quite finish but made some progress. In the evening we watched "Crash" on DVD. It is an excellent set of intertwining racism- or general mistrust-based stories. Afterwards, I watched the film "Bourne Identity" on TV. I liked it although I'm not the biggest fan of action movies normally. I liked particularly to see places in Europe I had been to, like Paris near Pont Neuf. Also the German autobahn reminded me of home.

On Tuesday I trained the sales staff at Kilosoft Oy to the secrets of Tick-the-Code: The Training and Tick-the-Code: The Method. So don't be surprised if some day, when you least expect someone calls you to tell you about improving your software development quality. Afterwards, Tapani and I went to see a sci-fi movie called "A Scanner Darkly" in a matinee. The live-action film made into an animation-style package is interesting, thought-provoking and visually exciting. The film is about drugs, police and the near future. The nervous paranoid discussion shooting off into surprising directions kept me quietly smiling to myself through the otherwise sombre tale.

On Wednesday I held two training sessions in a company about to change its name, which therefore wants to remain anonymous. In the evening we watched the extras of Extras, the first series. Be careful with the as it contains a lot of spoilers.

On Thursday morning I had a meeting with a possible new customer and there was definitely interest. The one clear obstacle was that they work with C# (C-sharp), of which I don't have any experience. I bought a book on it already, though. I'm willing to learn and adjust the rules of Tick-the-Code to better fit to C# programmers, too. Most of the rules will work already now, but the pointer rules for example probably won't. Adding a few C# rules into rules instead of the pointer rules adds nicely value in the training. In the evening Tapani, who supports Tappara, and I supporting Ilves, went to see the local icehockey match Tappara-Ilves in the Hakametsä ice-stadium. The periods were exciting and ended 2-1, 0-2 and 0-1, making Ilves the fourth-time winner this season with 5 goals to 2. The Ilves goalie saved a lot of shots as Tappara was being very aggressive but unlucky. By the way, did you know that you can buy fresh eggs directly from a farm in bar Domari? Neither did I before Thursday evening. You can also play pool there, which we did for an hour. Fun.

Friday was my Helsinki day. I jumped in a train in the morning, bought "Effective C#" near the station in Helsinki, ate lunch quickly at a McDonalds, took a taxi and drove to Pitäjänmäki. After a normal three-hour training session, I returned to the market place at the railway station and went skating for an hour at the IcePark. Then I jumped on a train and barely had the strength to walk to restaurant Natalie, where I regained all my strength with a meal containing fish, garlic, honey and other stuff, all of which was delicious. I met Riitta, Raija and Mika who all sent their hellos especially to Virpi. Mika told me stories about their trip to Thailand and I shared some Swiss skiing stories of mine.

Today I had the best "laskiaispulla" ever, thanks Tuula for baking it. Unlike the bun-review in the newspaper, which said "the filling was too sweet and there was too little of it". How inconsistent can you get? The rest of the day I spent with the Tervos and the day turned out to be normally perfect like the whole week, actually.

A perfectly normal Thursday

So there I am, sitting on the sofa, just wanting to watch TV, having a snack, enjoying a quiet night at home, alone. Then the mobile phone beeps.

One hour later I find myself 10 kilometers away from home, in a bar, surrounded by few policewomen, two witches, Minnie Mouse, a cow, a couple of Pippi Longstockings (one of them male) and a cowbow in neon-green outfit.

What has happened?

Too much alcohol? No.
Vivid imagination? No.

It's CARNIVAL TIME!

And now that I've survived the "Weiberfastnacht" from yesterday I'm looking forward to the "Rosenmontag" in Cologne next Monday. Read more from the Karneval-Lexicon and stay tuned for more carnival reports.

- - -

Akkain illasta selvitty, remumaanantaita odotellaan.

Taikuutta

Huomasinpa sattumalta, että kirjoitukseni taikanumeroista ovat vetäneet Qualiteersin kummalliseen joukkoon. Katso vaikka tämän listan viimeistä linkkiä.

Pohjimmiltaanhan tekniseksi innovaatioksi naamioitu internet on puhdasta taikuutta. Eikös ISOn OSI-mallin alimman kerroksen, fyysisen kerroksen alla jyllää juuri taikuus? Pitäisiköhän lisätä se tonne Wikipediaan? Sieltä "magical layer" näyttää puuttuvan kokonaan.

Decisive Points of Time

Last time I was in Finland in January I held a few trainings and in one I started to diagram something for the first time. I had been thinking about it for months, but had never made anything concrete out of it. So why not do it before a live audience? I guess the diagram didn't turn out to be perfect but I hope it got the message through. Let me explain this:

I wanted to show how the amount of choice diminishes with time. Let's assume your customer finds a mistake in your program. It does happen, you know. What are your choices after that? You have just one choice, fix it. Right? Leaving out the quite realistic option of ignoring errors, let's just assume that this is something so serious, you can't ignore. So you have only one option. Did you ever have more?

If you retrace your steps before the customer found the error, you'll notice that it would have been better for your reputation and your program had you or your team discovered the error before the customer. But did you have any other options, then either? If your test team, how internal ever, finds an error, you have to fix it. There's only one option, especially if it is serious enough to worry your customer. Let's go back in time some more.

How far should we go until the number of options changes? How long do you only have one option, fixing the error? The answer leads us right back to the time when you are just committing the error. After that there's only one course of action left for you. Removing the error, fixing it, getting rid of the fault, however you want to call it. The sooner you do that, the better. The best thing that can happen AFTER you commit a mistake is to notice it yourself. You'll be the only one to suffer, which is quite correct as you were the one to commit the mistake in the first place. The next best thing is if one of your peers notices the error in routine code inspection. It seems to be acceptable if it is the internal test team or even an external test team to notice the error. As long as you can fix it before the customer sees it, seems to be acceptable. The world doesn't always end with the customer noticing a serious bug, and just sometimes even serious bugs slip through without anybody noticing. Whether that's good or not, I can't say. Sounds like a zen-type question. How serious is a fatal bug nobody notices? Compare with "if a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody there, does it make a sound?"

Ok, after committing a mistake, you only have one course of action open to you. You have more choices BEFORE making a mistake. You can choose to work as normal, accepting that errors are normal and hoping that somebody will catch the most serious ones before the customer. You can always complain loudly that there are not enough testers in your project and that is jeopardizing the whole project. You'd do a good job but the company is not willing to invest in testing enough, so you're not responsible.

The other alternative is to take responsibility for your output, in this case your code, and do everything in your power trying to prevent errors from happening. That could be a regular Tick-the-Code session, where you lower the complexity of the code overall without ever noticing any errors. With lowered complexity you raise the possibility that you notice errors just as you make them. With clearer yode you also are less likely to make errors at all. A gaping hole in the logic needs filling and is clear to see if your code is structured in a clear and standard way, opposed to being a mess of spaghetti code where it is extremely difficult to notice anything missing because of all the extra baggage complicating the picture.

Regular code inspections prevent you from making mistakes and you never have to pass beyond the Point of No Return. Tick-the-Code gives you the Power of Choice. Take responsibility and decide for yourself. Don't let errors do the driving. Be proactive and remove errors without even making them in the first place. That is truly the Best Option.

As a graphic I tried to present this as two converging lines from left to right (the two choices: The High Road to Quality and the Wide Road to Mediocrity), which would meet at the point in time of committing a mistake, after which they would continue with time as just one line, one course of action. On that line you'd have people noticing the error and eventually somebody, you perhaps, removing the error. As a matter of fact, it is like the letter "Y" turned 90 degrees counterclockwise.

I'd be interested in any comments on this highly practical, yet philosophical, software-technological thought construct. How yould we utilise this, if we assume it is true? Is it true? If you thought like that, would you act differently? Do you think like that? Do you try to maximise options in your work? In your life? Or are you minimizing them routinely? Or does the right course of action depend on the subject matter? Let me know your thoughts on this, dear reader.

Go four a Snack

Quatro Stagioni or Four Seasons are complete in The Snack. Winter was the hardest, as there have only been two possibilities so far and during the first one I had the camera in Switzerland and missed all the snow in Bochum. This time it worked, and if you look at the winter picture and close your eyes you can imagine months and months of white silence in dreamy middle-European city called Bochum.

Nobody can tell us anymore that there aren't four seasons in Bochum. We have photographic evidence!

Fire-ah-bend

Yesterday I finally submitted a large offer. Compiling the information took a week, and I had to think the whole training concept over. It was very useful to think how I would train Tick-the-Code, if I had a whole day and an optional second day to do it. What else would I include than the plain code inspection technique?

---

The second set of material I need to finish this week is the sales material for Kilosoft Oy. I've tried to compile a comprehensive set of information about the Tick-the-Code course, its foreseeable future with my vision, the deficiencies or limitations it has, the benefits you can reach with it, etc. Next week I'll see if the material is comprehensive enough. Anyway, that's the information we'll have to live with.

---

I rewarded myself yesterday (after sending the offer) with an early Feierabend (that's a word you should know from German. It is pronounced like fire-ah-bend and means the time after you quit working. So everyday you start your trip homeward, you can say you're making Feierabend. Literally it means "party evening". In Germany you have a party every evening...), went for a walk in the clear and sunny air, drew a picture, played a few songs with Virpi on Guitar Hero.

---

In the (party) evening we went to Laurent's and watched a Spanish film called "Tierra" ("Earth"), which was interesting. Wine, woodlice, angels, imagination, love and death were all mixed up in a strange slowly-boiling brew. Enjoying it with a glass of red wine, some French saucisson (sausage) and chocolate fondue made the evening once again into a multicultural experience. I'm so happy to have friends from France and Spain. It does give me perspective.

---

It is SNOWING!

---

Bochumissa sataa lunta, toista kertaa tänä talvena! Yöllä oli jopa lähes neljä astetta pakkasta ollut. Saadaan jopa päivitettyä Snackiin talvikuva.

Early magpies

A couple of magpies are building a nest to a nearby tree easily seen from our balcony. (See the picture below, the nest is on the left.) It is February, isn't that a bit early? Now I hear that coldest of winters has reached both Finland and Canada. It can't be far away for the climate to cool down here in Germany too.
And I'm going to Finland next week, so that will be interesting. The temperature difference between the countries will be about forty degrees centigrade and what to wear during the trip takes some thinking.

I'm quite happy with the upcoming trip, by the way. I'll be having four trainings, in three companies, two of which I haven't trained before. Slowly the word about Tick-the-Code is spreading. And software professionals are noticing its worth. Which is nice.

Currently I'm compiling an offer for University of Kuopio in Finland. Even if the offer won't be taken, I get a chance to think about how to make the Tick-the-Code training last one or two days as they require. Planning it that way makes me look for new material, and learning has always been my favorite thing.

The rest of the week, I'll be finishing the sales material for Kilosoft, so they can better market Tick-the-Code in Finland.

---

By the way, we started this blog already in September 2005, so the calculations about 4 posts a week aren't at all accurate. Sorry for being overly enthusiastic. Thanks, Virpi for noticing.

---

Danke, Anke und Björn für die verspätete Silvesterparty. Die Kratzer von Tequila sind schon geheilt.

---

Pihla kirjoitti, että Kanadassa on kylmä. Saman kuulin Villeltä Tampereelta. Hrr. Ensi viikoksihan tulen Suomeen.

---

Työn alla tällä viikolla ovat olleet koulutustarjous Kuopion yliopistolle ja Tick-the-Code -markkinointimateriaali.

---

Harakanpesä lähipuussa alkaa jo näyttää, noh..., harakanpesältä. Ottivatkohan varaslähdön, joka kostautuu kunhan "takatalvi" iskee? Pesä on muuten kuvan vasemmassa laidassa. Aurinko paistoi tosi kirkkaasti etelästä juuri kuvanottohetkellä.


Tältä muuten kuulostaa tällä hetkellä Bochumissa, meidän parvekkeella. Koneet hurisee ja linnut laulaa. Tuoksuu keväältä.

Viikonloppuna käytiin Unnassa. Jostain syystä perheen kissa, Tequila, päätti käydä viideksi minuutiksi pitkäkseen matolle. Ja tältä se näytti tassut pystyssä.


---

"Uuno, pidätkö sinä pikkulinnuista?"
"Riippuu kastikkeesta."

Shenanigans and general mischief

Yesterday's party was a huge success regardless of the short notice. It was extremely heartwarming to see so many people on a Thursday night. Even the owner of the place, Kenneth, turned up and bought us the first round of drinks. Which was nice.

I'd like to thank all the people who have helped and supported us over the year and even before that. We couldn't have done it without you. If you weren't there yesterday, there will surely be other chances of celebrating.

---

On other news, I'm continuing to collect results from tickings of code all over the world. Once I have a statistically large enough set of results, I'll be sure to post them here as evidence on the usefulness of Tick-the-Code Inspection.

---

A year has passed since I wrote my (first) note, but I should have known this right from the start. Only hope can keep me together,..., seems I'm not alone in being alone, a hundred million castaways, looking for a home. (Apologies to Sting)

This is the 200th post in this blog! Isn't that something? Two hundred posts in a year makes about 4 posts a week. Which is nice.

---

Speaking of blogs, my favorite author, Neil Gaiman, has had one now for six years. I might have mentioned already that I follow it daily. So far he's written more than 800 000 words in it. He asked me to quietly create a link called Penn Jillette. There.

---

200. viesti ja 1 vuosi täynnä! Kiitos kaikille!

Qualiteers 1 year

We made it through the first year. Tonight it's time to celebrate.

If you want to join us for a glass of sparkling wine, you will find us tonight (Thursday 1.2.) in Mandragora in Bochum at 7 p.m. Cheers!