ON TURNING OVER UNTURNED STONES
One of my favourite after-work activities is to putter around the
print shop where I have a number of presses and other pieces of
printing
equipment. They all came to me second hand--well-worn and after
decades of service--so they are always in need of a little bit of
cleaning, oiling, or fine-tuning. It takes a lot of rags, elbow
grease, and patience to make them shine again. But they get there,
eventually, and I've begun to enjoy the renewal and maintenance of
these machines just as much as the act of printing they provide. It
has caused me to gain a cursory knowledge of machines and their parts,
like what a coupling is and how set screws work. It's also caused me
to daydream about one day creating my own press or piece of printing
equipment. I've got enough spare parts lying around that it shouldn't
be too hard to cobble something together... I just need to find the
time...
I bring this after-work activity up because I've been thinking a lot
about tools. Any
craftsperson worth their salt knows that it's important to keep tools
in top shape. There's no more sense using a dull saw to cut wood than
there's sense in using a flashlight without batteries to find your way
in the dark. And yet, we try, don't we? I've run jobs on a press
that's been sorely in need of tuning, and I've written code on
computers needing software updates or running low on space. But
whereas I can tolerate the dull computer, I won't stand a rickety
press. I attribute this difference in tolerances to heuristics. The
press' parts and inner workings I can see and understand, from the big
flywheel down to the smallest spring. But the computer's inner
workings are--to me at least--more elusive and obscure. For me the
mechanics of a computer are far more difficult to grasp.[1]
I've used computers from a young age, but how I've put them to use has
changed considerably over the years. As I mention in [I|2022-04-06.org|/assets/2022-04-06.org|roygbyte.com|70],
I didn't always understand that computers could be used to /do stuff/
and /get things done/. Soon after realizing the "power of
programming", I became interested in seeing how computers could
provide commentary on society (to be sure, part of me still is
interested in this edge). More recently, I've become interested in how
computers can order and partition the world. The separation of the
whole into its parts delights me, even if it is a flawed
sensibility. I'm drawn to admire programs that have so robustly
established the logic of their foundation[2] that they remain
resilient through generations of change in hardware, software, and
developer sensibilities. Emacs is such a software program, since it
seems to remain fresh and relevant despite how thoroughly computing
has changed since its creation.[3] And the press
is also like that, having proved it can remain useful and relevant
even as printing technology has changed from letterpress to offset,
digital, and whatever-the-hell it is now.
Yesterday I received a piece of e-mail I'd been anticipating since
January. The message told me I had been accepted into the Certificate
in Software Development program at the University of New
Brunswick. Yay! To know that I'd soon be taking courses like /Discrete
Structures/, /Data Structures and Algorithms/, and /Software
Engineering I/ filled me with joy and excitement. These courses (and
the in the curriculum) represent to me the theoretical
underpinnings of programming I sorely lack. Because although my skills
and knowledge had allowed me to work with software well enough to get
things done, I'd never been able to get those things done
/right/.[4] And as a (mostly) self-taught programmer[5], I
hadn't always had the appetite to learn the math or the theory or the
physics that make computation happen. Unlike printing presses, these
characteristics are not immediately evident. Not to me, anyways.
A few days before I received my letter of acceptance from UNB I sent
an email to , whose blog I had stumbled upon a few weeks
before and marvelled upon for its convivial musings, thorough
annotations, and generally kind and approachable airs. I asked Jeremy
"if it's common for programmers to spend a bit of their [time]
fixing/sharpening their tools. Like, do you ever take an hour to learn
a new Emacs feature that could boost your productivity?" I was curious
to know if programmers putter, if they (we?) spend time with their
tools outside of their productive use.[6] This may seem obvious to
folks thick in the field of computer science or software
engineering. To a lay-person like me who's never taken a course in
Computer Science, been part of a development team, or had to have
their code subject to a review these programming habits are not
immediately obvious.
Jeremy responded thoroughly, making a number of great insights on the
benefit of "". (As an aside, let me say that
sending the message and receiving such a detailed response was an
important grasp of confidence that made me feel like I am a part of
the field of software development, even if on the fringes, and even if
many of my experiences of using computers to build things and solve
problems often involves angst and frustration.[7]) He writes:
one outcome I consider absolutely enjoyable is the
puttering of time simply playing with a computer. Much like idly
whittling wood with a knife is quite enjoyable; and while the tangible
outcome is a pointy stick, the intangible is a sense of wonder.
This reflection spoke to me deeply. Play is a crucial part of
craft. From my experience with printing I know that when paws are kept
curious--when they wander through type drawers, ink canisters,
leading, and gears--they can develop a tacit knowledge of the
craft. There's an immense pleasure to be found in these idle
movements, just like the pleasure of "whittling wood". But I wonder
how much that pleasure can be found in what is largely a cognitive
task, like computing. Even using an interface as seemingly simple as
the command line requires thought and concentration, doesn't it? Can
hands idly type words into the prompt like the knife can idly shave
wood from a stick? I don't have that experience yet, but with these
queries I've become curious. Maybe that feeling--curiosity, wonder,
awe--is all that matters. The "idleness" I seek isn't lack of movement
or absence of thought but something else: absence of
expectation. Deciding to play in order to have fun is like going to a
restaraunt in order to have a shit--/that's not the point/.[8] We
play because we're drawn into something unspoken, undiscovered, or
unknown. We play because we delight in turning over unturned stones in
order to "ouu", "aww", and "eww" at the squirming insects and bugs
that
lay beneath. How precious it is to find something--a thought, a
feeling, a sensation--that we hadn't found before.
Footnotes
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Footnotes
_________
[1] Perhaps this difficulty is owed to being unfamiliar with the
tools? Given a press and its manual, solving issues becomes fairly
trivial. Can the same be said of a GNU/Linux machine and its
"man-pages"?
[2] Their anatomy, perhaps?
[3] How has it managed to do this? A guess: by being developed on a
resolute paradigm that need not be changed for the program itself to
change. Like how the components or structure of DNA don't change but
its contents and expression do. While Emacs remains attached to its
key concepts of macros and self-documentation what goes into the
buffers is entirely up to you.
[4] In UNIX philosophy, there is the "Rule of Optimization" that
instructs to "Prototype before polishing. Get it
working before you optimize it." A number of people have expressed
this concept, including Ken Thompson. There's more about that on .
[5] Self-taught in the sense of being an autodidact who reads
programming books, StackOverflow posts, etc.
[6] I would like to christen the expression "`M-x` and /awe/", as
in: to invoke Emacs' meta key and then scroll through the list of
suggestions. (Technically, it's actually `helm-M-x` that's invoked,
but I
have that mapped via `(global-set-key "\C-c\C-m" 'helm-M-x)`).
[7] When learning something new I'm like a fish flopping
around on the beach. I'm simultaneously: in awe at the newly
experienced terrain, overwhelmed by the conditions of life that I am
not adapted to survive, and feverishly hoping the tide will return and
take me back to sea. Surely, I must not be the only person who feels
this way in face of a new skill of knowledge?
[8] “The time of getting fame for your name on its own is
over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make
you famous. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means
something. /You don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you
want to have a shit./” -- Banksy (emphasis added)