I work in software development, and have spent a lot of my career heads-down in program code. Most people have a vision of programmers writing new clean programs all the time, but the reality is that professionals spend most of their time READING code and trying to figure out what in the hell their predecessors were thinking. This you must do before you can extend, enhance, replace or retire the programs of interest.
Frequently, you see code that is mysterious, that appears to serve no purpose, that looks like trash, that violates all coding rules known to mankind. For many programmers, usually new developers or people who have just not matured, the temptation to "fix" this sort of thing gets the better of them, and they forget the old rule (to paraphrase Chesterton) "don't tear down the fence until you understand why someone put it up in the first place". That code you want to mess with just might be the thing that is keeping it running, and messing with it without a sober understanding of what it IS doing can often lead to disaster - like lives at stake, thousands of dollars lost or a business totally shut down until the change is reversed - kind of disaster.
Mature programmers know this, often having learned it the hard way (raises hand). They are, if you will, conservative in outlook. If you don't know how it works, don't mess with it. The Law of Unintended Consequences is always in effect. Murphy is a son of a bitch and won't miss an opening.
What does this have to do with progressives and conservatives in politics?
First, we need some definitions. I often say that I'm both a liberal AND a conservative, because those things aren't opposites.
The opposite of a liberal is not a conservative; it's an authoritarian. That's someone who wants to control what you do or say, and spend your money for you, and not the way you'd choose. I don't like authoritarians, and you probably don't either.
The opposite of a conservative is not a liberal; it's a progressive. Progressives tend to think they are working towards something better, and by definition, leaving something they think worse behind - and if a few fences need to be torn down in the process, so what? Nobody needs that old stuff cluttering up our modern world anyway.
As a side note, most normal people are hesitant to mess with things that they think aren't broken, so progressives frequently have to force their ideas on the unwilling with a little (or a lot) of authoritarianism. So if you are looking for the fascists, you know where to start. Just saying.
In programming, the guys who want to fix what's not broken, and ignore Murphy's Law and the Law of Unintended Consequences are the progressives. When you have "progressive" developers on your team, you come down on them good and hard until they learn to truly think through what they want to do before they dive in. The stakes are too high.
The people who just lost this election are not liberals and certainly not conservative. They are authoritarians and progressives, both to a dangerous degree. Western Civilization, Judeo Christian values and Anglo-American culture are the operating system that keeps this country going, and they are removing and replacing its code left and right (if you'll pardon the expression). To use a different analogy, they are people who will gleefully pull down the walls, then act indignant when the roof falls down on them.
Thank heavens they are out of power for at least the next four years. The adults may be able to patch up some of what was messed up. Perhaps a restore to an earlier build is in order.
Also, read this by Eric Raymond. It's important: Hey, Democrats! We need you to get your act together!
No comments:
Post a Comment