The Codeless Code: Case 33 Fear 
======

 A senior monk, recently inducted into the temple,
approached the Java master in frustration:

“I am tasked to add several features to the Imperial
Shoemaker’s order-processing system, yet I cannot begin to
comprehend how it works. The logic is distributed among
multiple applications, each implemented with wildly
different technologies. Instead of creating common utilities
the authors have merely copied swaths of code from place to
place, often introducing subtle differences afterward.
Background jobs seek and modify database records for no
documented reason, and the database itself conspires against
me: a simple update of one table can trigger a cascade of
inserts and deletes in others.”

“I see two paths before you,” said the Java master. “In the
first, you make only the necessary additions and quickly
proclaim victory. In the second, you begin the arduous task
of refactoring the code base. How will you proceed?”

The monk bowed in shame. “I cannot say. At present I am
afraid to touch anything, lest my ignorance prove my
undoing.”

“Fear makes good armor but a poor blade,” nodded the Java
master. “To defeat your fear, we must dispel your
ignorance.” With his staff he slid the window-screen open
and gestured to the forest beyond.

“Follow the Road of White Nettles for three days into the
mountains, and you will come to a hermitage perched on a
cliff. A learned brother dwells there who keeps copies of
our client’s documentation. He will advise you on the design
of the system.”

The monk did as he was told, and at sunset came to the
hermitage, which was a building unlike any he had ever seen.

It had clearly begun life as a sturdy stone house at the
very edge of the cliff, but three new wings of rough-hewn
pine with bark shingles now thrust well beyond the cliff and
into space.  Beyond these were open walkways and stairways,
ending in dozens of rooms perched on diagonal stilts that
were (only barely) supported by rocky outcroppings far
below.

Lashed onto the rooms were other additions stretching still
further out into the void, made of bamboo and canted crazily
in all directions. Ramps and ladders erupted from their
undersides, leading to isolated rooms suspended by ropes and
made chiefly of reed and straw. Everything was bound
together with lines of hemp, tied off at a windowsill here
and a weathervane there, as though some great drunken spider
had caught a hundred huts in its web.  The structure swayed
sickeningly in the gentle breeze, creaking as it did.

The monk stood gaping for a while, then recovered himself
and struck the gong.

From the furthest room came the hermit, shimmying up ropes
and down rooftops, disappearing into a trapdoor of bamboo
and finally reappearing at the door of the hut.

“What news to me from the temple?” asked the hermit. “Have I
been summoned home at last?”

The monk indicated that he had no such news to relay.

The hermit hung his head. “Miserable me! For until such word
is given, my task is to expand this hermitage ever outward
beyond the cliff’s edge, to house the temple’s growing
collection of temporary files. This I have done for years
now, faithfully and unquestioningly, hoping to one day earn
the master’s favor and return from exile. But I confess that
my work becomes more difficult with each passing season.
Winter snows hang so heavy on the rooftops that the bamboo
stilts begin to buckle, and in summer I must fight the
magpies to keep my straw walls from becoming part of
someone’s nest. By the by... you are not (I hope) possessed
of any allergies? Pollen? Ragweed? I once watched seven
rooms collapse and tumble down the cliff in answer to a
vigorous sneeze...”

“But this is madness!” cried the monk. “Now that you have
some sense of how many rooms are needed, can you not tear
down this monstrosity and start anew?”

“What nonsense. Imagine the time such an endeavor might
take, and how displeased my master might become in the
meanwhile! How could I justify subtracting storerooms
instead of adding them? My exile might be extended for
another decade! No, it is far safer to do exactly as I have
been commanded. Anyway, I understand this hermitage quite
well, its strong places and weak ones; and so long as I
tread lightly and avoid pepper, my odds of perishing in a
long fall are reasonably low.

“But enough of my plight, learned brother. If you were not
sent here to summon me home, then you must need my help
understanding the Imperial Shoemaker’s order-processing
system. Many like yourself have come for that purpose, for
it was I who was its author.”

The monk only bowed and departed back down the road, having
already obtained the promised enlightenment from the
hermitage.