It's a kind of magic
Silicon Superstitions
ACM Queue vol. 1, no. 9 - December/January 2003-2004
by Jef Raskin, Consultant
When we don't understand a process, we fall into magical thinking about results.
We live in a technological age. Even most individuals on this planet who do not have TV or cellular telephones know about such gadgets of technology. They are artifacts made by us and for us. You'd think, therefore, that it would be part of our common heritage to understand them. Their insides are open to inspection, their designers generally understand the principles behind them, and it is possible to communicate this knowledge—even though the "theory of operation" sections of manuals, once prevalent, seem no longer to be included. Perhaps that's not surprising considering that manuals themselves are disappearing, leaving behind glowing Help screens that too often are just reference material for the cognoscenti rather than guides for the perplexed.
This loss of information is unfortunate, as any activity involving the exact same actions can have different results—that is, wherever there's "random reinforcement" (as the psychologists say) is fallow ground in which superstitions rapidly grow. Fishing is a good example. When out angling for rock fish, you generally use the same lure as everybody else. There is not much technique to it, so the number of fish you catch is proportional to the time your lure is in the water. Those who spend time fiddling with the equipment beforehand catch fewer fish. It's a mathematical certainty. I choose my equipment with one aim in mind: Eliminate hassle. So while my fishing companions use fancy reels and fight the occasional tangle, I use the closed-cap kind you give to youngsters because they seldom foul. On every trip I have fished to the limit as fast or faster than anybody else has on the boat. They don't laugh at my "primitive" equipment anymore, but they do ask me if there's some special stuff I rub onto my lures to get the fish to bite or if I have some other "secret." They don't believe the true explanation, which I am happy to share. It's too simple, and there's no "secret" stuff or device behind my success.
In fact, people love mysteries and myths so much that they create them when an explanation seems too simple or straightforward. "Why is Windows so hard to use?" I am asked.
"Because it was designed badly in the first place and has grown by repeatedly being patched and adjusted rather than being developed from the ground up."
"But, "say the inquisitive, "there must be more to it," thinking that some deep problems inherent to computers force the outward complexity. The only forces involved are what Microsoft mistakenly thinks the market wants—and inertia.
Computer systems exhibit all the behaviors best suited to create superstitious responses. You will try something, it won't work, so you try it again—the exact same way—and this time it works, or not. That's random reinforcement. The effectiveness of many programming and management practices thus are not measurable.
Most of the principles of "extreme programming," for example, seem reasonable to me, and I was using many of them long before they had acquired their present absurd name. The people who promulgate the idea, however, are also those who created the paradigm. Most reported results aren't even single-blind, much less double-blind. We rarely understand, in any detail, the processes going on behind the tasks we do with computers. We're using megabytes of code written by others, code that is indifferently documented and inadequately tested, and which is being used in ways and in combinations unforeseen by its creators.
No wonder we tend to act as if computers are run by magic. .....I invite readers to share examples of superstitious behavior in the technological world with me. Meanwhile, be a skeptic: Ask yourself if what you're doing is based on fact, on observation, on a sound footing, or if there is something dodgy about it—if there's a touch of superstition in your interaction with technology.
posted by Bruce Sterling on iDC mailing list
ACM Queue vol. 1, no. 9 - December/January 2003-2004
by Jef Raskin, Consultant
When we don't understand a process, we fall into magical thinking about results.
We live in a technological age. Even most individuals on this planet who do not have TV or cellular telephones know about such gadgets of technology. They are artifacts made by us and for us. You'd think, therefore, that it would be part of our common heritage to understand them. Their insides are open to inspection, their designers generally understand the principles behind them, and it is possible to communicate this knowledge—even though the "theory of operation" sections of manuals, once prevalent, seem no longer to be included. Perhaps that's not surprising considering that manuals themselves are disappearing, leaving behind glowing Help screens that too often are just reference material for the cognoscenti rather than guides for the perplexed.
This loss of information is unfortunate, as any activity involving the exact same actions can have different results—that is, wherever there's "random reinforcement" (as the psychologists say) is fallow ground in which superstitions rapidly grow. Fishing is a good example. When out angling for rock fish, you generally use the same lure as everybody else. There is not much technique to it, so the number of fish you catch is proportional to the time your lure is in the water. Those who spend time fiddling with the equipment beforehand catch fewer fish. It's a mathematical certainty. I choose my equipment with one aim in mind: Eliminate hassle. So while my fishing companions use fancy reels and fight the occasional tangle, I use the closed-cap kind you give to youngsters because they seldom foul. On every trip I have fished to the limit as fast or faster than anybody else has on the boat. They don't laugh at my "primitive" equipment anymore, but they do ask me if there's some special stuff I rub onto my lures to get the fish to bite or if I have some other "secret." They don't believe the true explanation, which I am happy to share. It's too simple, and there's no "secret" stuff or device behind my success.
In fact, people love mysteries and myths so much that they create them when an explanation seems too simple or straightforward. "Why is Windows so hard to use?" I am asked.
"Because it was designed badly in the first place and has grown by repeatedly being patched and adjusted rather than being developed from the ground up."
"But, "say the inquisitive, "there must be more to it," thinking that some deep problems inherent to computers force the outward complexity. The only forces involved are what Microsoft mistakenly thinks the market wants—and inertia.
Computer systems exhibit all the behaviors best suited to create superstitious responses. You will try something, it won't work, so you try it again—the exact same way—and this time it works, or not. That's random reinforcement. The effectiveness of many programming and management practices thus are not measurable.
Most of the principles of "extreme programming," for example, seem reasonable to me, and I was using many of them long before they had acquired their present absurd name. The people who promulgate the idea, however, are also those who created the paradigm. Most reported results aren't even single-blind, much less double-blind. We rarely understand, in any detail, the processes going on behind the tasks we do with computers. We're using megabytes of code written by others, code that is indifferently documented and inadequately tested, and which is being used in ways and in combinations unforeseen by its creators.
No wonder we tend to act as if computers are run by magic. .....I invite readers to share examples of superstitious behavior in the technological world with me. Meanwhile, be a skeptic: Ask yourself if what you're doing is based on fact, on observation, on a sound footing, or if there is something dodgy about it—if there's a touch of superstition in your interaction with technology.
posted by Bruce Sterling on iDC mailing list
posted by katharine s. willis at 11:14 am
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