We have a rabbit at home - a rabbit which from time to time does unusual
things. Over the years it has mastered the art of dish hurling. As a rabbit
dish is made from stoneware or porcelain and is quite smooth without
handles, it isn't easy to hurl it about the place. Nobody knows exactly why
the rabbit does this. I myself think that it has convinced itself that there
must be a stash of tasty nibbles underneath every dish, and our rabbit
happens to be quite fond of tasty nibbles. As the nibbles tend to end up
underneath the dish due to the rabbit's vigorous rummaging around whenever
its dish has just been filled, this makes the rabbit right at least some of
the time.
This is where I come in. Whenever I observe the rabbit going about its
business, it makes me think of the way in which I attempt to come to grips
with software. My method is quite straightforward: I simply assume that good
quality software (or logiciel, as the French call it; at least they take the
trouble to stick to their own language, which is a darn sight more than I
can say for the Netherlands even though there is a perfectly respectable
Dutch word for software, or one could always frenchify the English word into
something like "ohmelaycherchay", what with software ironically leading to
runny egg and the "ware" sounding not dissimilar to "where"; a step,
incidentally, which from an EU point of view wouldn't be a bad idea because
it has been crucial to keep the French on side ever since the Netherlands
gained that one crucial vote on Belgium, although to be brutally frank I
would prefer waiving our voting edge if we could thus return to regular
spelling) must lend itself for application without requiring the user to
pre-digest several inches of manual - the same requirement, incidentally,
which I impose on common or garden variety appliances, although I hasten to
add that I was quite delighted the other day to find the hammer I had just
purchased accompanied by a set of user instructions in an array of
languages. Unfortunately software seldom lives up to this assumption of
mine, which explains the inferiority complex with which I have been
struggling for many a year.
Although my attitude has changed, my method has remained firmly intact. This
often gives me a somewhat rabbit-y feeling: you do something or other and
sometimes it's as if there is some kind of causality which on other
occasions you cannot seem to recreate either for love or for money. It's not
that the stuff doesn't work, it's just that logical analysis or closely
adhering to instructions doesn't seem to get you anywhere. And before you
conclude that this must surely be a gap in the market, let me assure you
that it's no such thing. After all, would you believe an advertising slogan
which promised you that from now on something or other would be
straightforward and clear? I doubt it very much. By the time you find out it
wasn't true after all, it's too late, as you will find out over and over again.
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