A Public Service Announcement to Ornithophobes

I had no idea that some authors can be so highly valued. Take, for example, the horror genre. One of the most prestigious of its representatives is surely Edgar Allan Poe, the writer of "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Raven". Now witness me walking around in the city of Wroclaw, or Breslau, as the German name is. I'm looking for the Museum of Natural History, minding my own business and what do I see, when I look suddenly behind me?

This...
...and this!

In the poem "The Raven" E.A.Poe describes a crow that says "Nevermore!" most ominously. Are they stalking me? I decide to continue, I pick up the pace a little, but not enough to catch the nice red sports cars whooshing by me almost completely ignoring the afternoon rush hour.

No chance of catching up.

I finally find the museum, but it does not console me, I can't get in! Look, there's a huge bird guarding the door! Is there no safety in this city?

No way am I going to get in under those watchful eyes!

I better head down to the river, I need to calm down. The river flows quietly. But what is that sound? Let's see, it's coming just around the corner. Here's the view from the bridge (extreme closeup, look with care):

Birds in a feeding frenzy

There is no peace in this city. I better ask the little people for help. They are known to chase away big birds. They aren't too bright, though. Here you see two of them moving a rock, by both pushing from opposite directions. They've been at it for years. The rock hasn't moved yet.

Push, push, maybe one day it will budge!
Some of the little people take it more easy, especially when one of their brethren has gotten rid of the birds.
In the nighttime, some of the little people take out their broomsticks, climb on street lights and drive the birds away.

They can apparently turn large African animals to sheets of metal, too.
Rhinos are less dangerous in this form.

After my animal adventures in Wroclaw, I'm happy to return to literature, in the safety between the pages, where anything can happen, but nothing can happen to you. That's why the horror genre is so popular. It feels dangerous, but isn't.
I never knew writers could be so highly valued. To name a whole country. Wroclaw is a big city in Poeland, you know.

A month later...

November has gone you see,
December crept like a thief on me.

What actually happened then?
What was important back when
November ruled the almanacks
was time the thing you lacked?
Or was it laziness, apathy or fear
that left the blog empty and drear?

A bit of everything I guess
this blogger must confess
and for that I am truly sorry
but I do have to say
it is my life, my blog, my time
I am not going to worry
if I fail to post yet another day
as long as I feel fine

You yourself should do the same
take responsibility for being lame
just don't let others dictate
what you should do, how you should feel
It is yours, the mind and its state
it's your life, live it now, don't be late
it's now or never, believe it, it's real
one day it'll be over and you'll be late
forever.

This is my creative apology
a little lonesome monology
if you want to critique this figment
of imagination, leave a comment

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Yeah, well November went past and fast. It consisted of preparing for the trip to Finland, making phone calls, convincing people of the value of Tick-the-Code and making general arrangements. In this Virpi was once again invaluable. Without her itinerary, I would have been out of place many times. With it, I've managed to keep my appointments and to know when I have free time to concentrate on my book, for example.

For the past two weeks, I've been in Finland. I've conducted several trainings, as you can read from the Customers page. It is extremely rewarding to see software professionals try the method and see how different it is to what they've done before. Most notice these details and see even maybe why they should work. The ones who don't understand the reasons behind certain things, shouldn't change anything in the method, because they might destroy something important without even realising.

One example of an important detail, which seems extremely difficult for some people to understand, is the fact that you should start checking code with ridiculously simple rules. I might truly simple. Rules that anybody who can read, could check for. Rules so simple that the computer could check them automatically. Some people see that it is wasteful to do manually, because you can do it with a program/machine. But the whole point behind it is to get the mind in the right state for effective checking, to warm-up the brain for the more difficult rules to come. If you skip this stage, you probably won't reach the high productivity figures, which Tick-the-Code can produce otherwise. There's nothing wrong with the original method, but you've managed to (inadvertently) break it by not understanding the reason behind the simple checking and skipping it.

In fact, I'm beginning to consider inadvertent acts of people as the most dangerous aspect against quality work. We could say that there is one right way to make something. If you are not comfortable with the concept of One right way, replace it mentally with a very limited amount of ways. For every one right way of making something, there are infinite number of ways of making it wrong. The probability against reaching a favorable result in any undertaking is staggeringly high. By focusing the human intellect we conquer these odds and find the one right way. Any time we forget something, or fail to notice a consequence or fail to consider an alternative or fail to prove a concept, we are inadvertently straying from the one right way. Luck is against us just because of the probability pattern just described. We can't rely on luck, we must rely on our intellect and skills. Without focus, we'll stray.

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Suomeksi: Pahoitteluni, että blogin päivityksessä on ollut yli kuukauden mittainen tauko. Toivon, että en ole aiheuttanut tällä laiminlyönnilläni turhaa huolestumista kummankaan blogin lukijan mielessä. Pistäkää toki kommenttia, jos haluatte kuulla kuulumisistamme useammin.

Parin viikon Suomen matka on tänään ohi. Uusia Tick-the-Code -ammattilaisia on taas syntynyt ja yli 450 ohjelmistosuunnittelijaa on koulutuksen saanut. Seuraavana ohjelmassa on ensi vuoden taktiikan suunnittelu ja Saksan markkinoiden todellinen avaaminen.