Pragmatic Dictator

We rely a lot on hardware, tools or software optimizing automatically. We expect it from processors, compilers, databases, javaspaces, caches and so on.

But there’s a limit to what can be achieved because these elements can only make a best guess at what we are trying to achieve and optimize on that basis.

These guesses are based on limited context – e.g. an instruction stream or the recency and/or frequency with which something is updated. The big picture as to what’s really going on is in the surrounding application or maybe even just the programmers head.

Thus without programmer involvement, there’s always a limit to what we can deduce from limited contextual information. The problems come when our systems can’t deduce enough to be effective in their optimization. This can happen because there isn’t enough information (it may have been removed or was never present) or more interestingly because the programmer writes code that isn’t amenable to the optimization process.

Thus it is quite interesting that we spend much time hiding details like concurrency or distribution from our programmers (via frameworks or tools) actually preventing or at minimum discouraging them from getting involved in and specifying the necessary details to optimize effectively.

Technorati Tags: architecture, design, distributed systems, performance

…..what I’ve done

Linkin Park

Technorati Tags: music, linkin park,personal

CCTV just got an “upgrade”

One more example of the utter inability of our society to grasp a fundamental issue – the law in all its forms including CCTV is merely a deterrent. You can scare away the amateurs from committing petty crimes like littering but it does nothing in the more serious cases:

“Yes ma’am I appreciate that your husband was stabbed to death in a horribly violent attack but don’t worry we’ve got it all on CCTV”

Too late! The attackers get thirty years at most whilst the husband loses maybe 50 years of his life and a wife and children suffer similarly. Justice is retrospective and it fails us in these moments. CCTV does nothing to deliver significant improvement because like so much else it doesn’t tackle the hard issues – why do we continually waste money on these largely pointless pieces of technology? Time to get real, please.

Technorati Tags: society, technology

…..thanks for the memories.

Fall Out Boy

Technorati Tags: music,personal

Many a techie spends too much time looking inwardly at their favoured technologies without reference to what goes on elsewhere. This inhibits growth in a number of directions:

1. Frameworks don’t evolve significantly, we just polish them a little more
2. There are no genuine technology paradigm shifts
3. …..

Interesting then to watch how some of the “web crowd” are picking up on this. Can’t wait to see what happens next…….

Technorati Tags: web, technology evangelism learning

Update: A related post from Cote