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Thursday, 31 March 2011 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jesse_the_kETA: Cut. Sorry about spamming your droll. :(
Let me offer you a link paté -- I've actually read all these stories, and wanted to share their greatness with you:
Doctor and Patient
When Optimism Is Unrealistic
By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.
NY Times 3 March 2011
This doctor is one of the few medical writers I trust: she's been willing to expose and meditate on her own failings. This time she asks us to consider the platitude that "there's always hope!" when it encounters the reality of Phase I testing. That's when scientists make sure that a drug or procedure won't make your ears fall off or kill you right away. Any improvement is a totally unreliable bonus. Is there informed consent in this case?
Technical debt and the making of payments on it
Denise Paolucci
One of DW's founders provides an excellent description of what it means when your code has developed over a long time. An important thing in 2001 may hand-coded into the design. In 2011 there are much better ways to do it, and the temptation is to rip it out. Not always a good idea, and why we can't all have pretty features now. But in addition to insight into DreamWidth's development, this analysis raises intriguing questions about long-lived infrastructure, whether it's software or sidewalks.
both of which lead into:
The Lifecycle of Software Objects
Ted Chiang
Subterranean Press
This novella (a well deserved Hugo-nomination) explores the design, coding, marketing, deployment, adoption, and eventual failure of artificially intelligent "pets." Chiang's spare prose leads me to love the "digients" and their human makers/masters/guardians/friends. Yet their Second-Life-like world is built on tall sonotubes full of technical debt, and the sea is eroding the pilings. What responsibility do the humans have? Is suspending a digient like punching your friend in the face? donating a book back to the library?
Let me offer you a link paté -- I've actually read all these stories, and wanted to share their greatness with you:
Doctor and Patient
When Optimism Is Unrealistic
By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.
NY Times 3 March 2011
This doctor is one of the few medical writers I trust: she's been willing to expose and meditate on her own failings. This time she asks us to consider the platitude that "there's always hope!" when it encounters the reality of Phase I testing. That's when scientists make sure that a drug or procedure won't make your ears fall off or kill you right away. Any improvement is a totally unreliable bonus. Is there informed consent in this case?
Technical debt and the making of payments on it
Denise Paolucci
One of DW's founders provides an excellent description of what it means when your code has developed over a long time. An important thing in 2001 may hand-coded into the design. In 2011 there are much better ways to do it, and the temptation is to rip it out. Not always a good idea, and why we can't all have pretty features now. But in addition to insight into DreamWidth's development, this analysis raises intriguing questions about long-lived infrastructure, whether it's software or sidewalks.
both of which lead into:
The Lifecycle of Software Objects
Ted Chiang
Subterranean Press
This novella (a well deserved Hugo-nomination) explores the design, coding, marketing, deployment, adoption, and eventual failure of artificially intelligent "pets." Chiang's spare prose leads me to love the "digients" and their human makers/masters/guardians/friends. Yet their Second-Life-like world is built on tall sonotubes full of technical debt, and the sea is eroding the pilings. What responsibility do the humans have? Is suspending a digient like punching your friend in the face? donating a book back to the library?
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Date: 31/03/2011 11:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 01/04/2011 08:32 am (UTC)