Ok, we IT people in the software world have been known to take ourselves way too seriously (including myself) on occasion (how about all the time) so today we are going to have some nonsense.  The nonsense I am talking about is my washing machine.  Now my long time friend and co-founder of 5by5Software, Barry Varga, has asked me what I was doing around a washing machine in the first place.  Well, I was fixing it for my lovely wife, Lesley. Yah, thats the ticket.

 

Remember the annoying beep beep beep firmware problem?  Well, its back.  It seems that Lesley has pressed some magical key combination that caused the infernal machine to resume beeping, three beeps on the minute, every minute when the machine says its done.  Someone in the house has to physically go over to the machine and manually turn it off.  Sledgehammer anyone?

 

But there is more, and here is where the annoying crosses the boundary into the stupefying. Lesley likes to add things to the wash, whilst the washer is washing.  This according to her is common practice.  So she presses the pause button (no kidding, there is a pause button) and tries to open the door.  You guessed it, the door wont open.  Her words were, why wont the machine do what I want it to do? I used to do this with my old washer (not software controlled) and not only could I stop and add items at any time, I can even restart and the washer would already know what level the water was at and not add any more.  I would have liked to tell her that once we purchased a computer controlled machine that she is no longer in control, but I am sure she does not want to hear that   In the end, this means I get enlisted to fix it.

 

First, I do the unthinkable and consult the 27 page manual first (told ya, I am a geek).  Searching through the manual I come across the following statement, Adding laundry is not possible because the door is locked for safety reasons.  The very next line says, Laundry may be added after pressing the Start/Stop button.  Huh?  In fact, in several places these contradictory statements are made.  There is some (stupid computer) trick to make it work because we still cant open the door, even after pausing the machine and even after following the procedure(s) in the manual.  Obviously, as I told Lesley, we must call the manufacturer and request a secret decoder ring to figure out the magic computer logic sequence to unlock the door.

 

Lesley has something to say to the designers of this machine.  As far as she is concerned, the old washer lets you do this and the new one doesnt.  From her perspective, the new washer is a poor design as it does not meet her requirements and she is frustrated that the machine and the instruction manual are so complicated, that she gives up.  Someone at the new washer manufacturer has played a stupid computer trick on her.

 

And thats the point.  Something as simple as a computer controlled washing machine appears to be too complicated to get right in the way of features and user interface design.  How hard can this be?  What does that say about software programs that are 100 or 1000 times the size and complexity?

 

Next week we are continuing with the industrialization of software where the topic will be lessons in abstractions using modeling tools.