codeless_code 0.1.2

data/data/the-codeless-code/en-qi/case-206.txt

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+Date: 2015-09-13
+Title: Inaction Hero
+Number: 206
+Tagline: In which we are answered.
+Names: Kaimu, Mudána, Nabasu, Djishin, Landhwa, Wangohan, Zjing
+Topics: laziness, industriousness, confidence, inquisitiveness, thoroughness, precision, humility, focus
+Geekiness: 1
+
+A monk emailed master [[Kaimu]]:
+
+      Last week you hinted at Six Qualities //
+      essential to being a diligent developer. //
+      What are these "Six Qualities"?
+
+
+Strangely, within seconds he received a long reply:
+
+      To understand music, //
+      visit the raucous market at noon. //
+      To understand the Six Qualities, //
+      you have only to look around you:
+
+      The First is lacking in the monk [[Mudána]]. //
+      If asked to hunt a deer for supper, //
+      he will spend the day in bed dreaming of venison. //
+      We gave him leave to rest all day -- far away from here.
+
+      The Second is lacking in the nun [[Nabasu]]. //
+      If asked to hunt a deer for supper, //
+      she will cringe as if the bow were a pit-viper, //
+      and beg to be relieved of the duty.
+
+      The Third is lacking in the monk [[Djishin]]. //
+      If asked to hunt a deer for supper, //
+      he will [[#108|try to invent a weapon]] for the task. //
+      That week the Temple will go hungry.
+
+      The Fourth is lacking in the monk [[Landhwa]]. //
+      If asked to hunt a deer for supper, //
+      he will [[#97|drop his bow and haul along a cannon]], //
+      leaving us with little meat, and a large mess.
+
+      The Fifth is lacking in the monk [[Wangohan]]. //
+      If asked to hunt a deer for supper, //
+      he will choose the shuriken [[#194|against all objections]], //
+      and chase a bleeding deer for thirty days.
+
+      The Sixth is lacking in young master [[Zjing]]. //
+      If asked to hunt a deer for supper, //
+      she will promise to do so when she has a free moment... //
+      The deer will be dead of ripe old age by then.
+
+
+The monk thought for a minute and emailed the master:
+
+      The First is too lazy to even begin. //
+      The Second too lazy to conquer self-doubt. //
+      The Third is too lazy to look for good tools. //
+      The Fourth is too lazy to strive for precision. //
+      The Fifth is too lazy to start over fresh. //
+      The Sixth is too lazy to focus attention. //
+
+      Yet if laziness engenders six paths to failure, //
+      how can it be one of the Three Great Virtues?{{*}} //
+
+
+Again, within seconds he received a reply:
+
+      Master Kaimu is away on a deer hunting trip. //
+      When asked to answer emails during his absence, //
+      he decided to code a slick auto-responder instead. //
+      If you're reading this, rephrase and resend your question.
+
+
+
+{{*}} Declared by one of the Patriarchs to be: <a href="http://threevirtues.com">laziness, impatience, and hubris</a>.
+
+

data/data/the-codeless-code/en-qi/case-207.txt

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+Date: 2015-09-20
+Title: Parrot
+Number: 207
+Names: Bawan, Eku, Eku's parrot, Mudána
+Topics: laziness, aspiration, impostors, imitation, self-deception
+Geekiness: 1
+Tagline: In which we ask: who's a pretty bird?
+Illus.0.src: crackers.jpg
+Illus.0.title: I used to mix leftover corned-beef hash with flour and yeast to make these *really* tasty saltines.  But when I tried to sell them as "Salted Hash Crackers" I got a visit from the NSA.
+Credits: Many thanks to 
+
+
+[[#206|This same monk]] went to master [[Bawan]] and said:
+"Tell me of the monk [[Mudána]], for I am new to the Temple
+and have never heard of him, except that he was banished for
+laziness."
+
+Bawan replied: "Mudána wished to be a great developer.  He
+asked questions of the masters, studied the code of his
+peers, and insisted that the team leads review his work."
+
+The monk said: "If all this is true, then surely Mudána was
+not lazy."
+
+Bawan rapped the monk's head with his staff.  "[[Eku]] had a
+parrot that asked each visitor if Patterns and Antipatterns
+were one and the same, yet the only answer the parrot wanted
+was a cracker.  The bird memorized random bits of
+bibble-babble merely to repeat the sounds.  And it insisted
+on performing for Eku because she would sometimes stroke its
+head."
+
+The monk rubbed his head, saying: "Yet you said that Mudána
+wished to be a great developer!"
+
+Bawan replied: "Eku's parrot wished to be like its master.
+Did it yearn to possess Eku's wisdom... or her ability to open the
+cabinet where the crackers were kept?"

data/data/the-codeless-code/en-qi/case-208.txt

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+Date: 2015-09-27
+Title: Wolf in the Fold
+Number: 208
+Names: Yíwen, Hwídah
+Topics: perfection, elegance, production support, compromise
+Geekiness: 2
+Tagline: In which there is a brief musical interlude
+
+The nun [[Yíwen]] was tuning a /guqin/ in her quarters when her
+roommate [[Hwídah]] returned and slumped into a chair, visibly
+defeated.
+
+"Ten thousand pardons for my curiosity," said Yíwen, "but
+your brow is more deeply-furrowed than usual.  Have you
+again been investigating failures in our production
+systems?"
+
+"It is all I seem to do these days," sighed Hwídah. "Although the
+cause of this evening's trouble was particularly irksome.
+Every choice the developer made is optimal when taken by
+itself, yet the combination taken as a whole is disastrous.
+Thus the best approach to fixing the problem remains elusive."
+
+"How unfortunate!" said Yíwen.  "Have you informed the
+developer of this conundrum, that they might meditate upon
+it?"
+
+"There was no need," said Hwídah.  "This miserable soul is she."
+
+- - -
+
+For a while the two sat in silence, as Hwídah took solace in
+sweet fragments of melody being plucked out by Yíwen.
+
+"The act of coding shares much with the composition of music,"
+observed Hwídah.  "Each note may be perfect in isolation, yet it
+cannot be judged by itself.  It must be weighed against the notes
+that come before, and the ones that come after, like steps in an
+algorithm."
+
+"Yet each must also be weighed against the notes sounded alongside
+it, would you not agree?" asked Yíwen.  "Melody and harmony are the
+warp and weft of music; for the staff is two-dimensional, and
+time is but one axis.  Even in my humble /guqin/, the vibration
+of one string causes its fellows to vibrate in sympathy, as
+surely as multiple threads may affect each other in an application."
+
+"Would that the harmonies of software were as simple as those of
+sound!" said Hwídah.  "For I did 'play' my application many times in
+private, and never a note seemed out of place!"
+
+"Simple?" asked Yíwen.  "Have you never heard of the Twelfth Root?"
+
+- - -
+
+"Long ago," said Yíwen, "it was observed that if a string is
+plucked along with another string exactly one-half its
+length, the two notes sound so similar as to be judged
+identical.  It was also observed that if a string is plucked
+alongside another which is two-thirds its length, the
+resulting harmony is quite pleasing.  The same held true for
+many simple ratios, like three-fourths and four-fifths, and
+two-fifths, and so on.  Thus did a musical scale take shape
+around simple fractions.
+
+"Yet all attempts to produce a perfect scale for the
+keyboard were thwarted.  For there are many such fractions,
+and many ways to arrange them, yet no matter which tuning
+was tried it would always contain some intolerable imperfection.
+An interval that sounded exquisite in one key would
+<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_interval">howl like a wolf</a>
+in another.
+
+"Every choice is optimal when taken by itself, yet the
+combination is disastrous," murmured Hwídah.  "But then
+how is your keyboard tuned?"
+
+"By the best bad compromise of all," said Yíwen.  "There are
+twelve notes per octave, so the ratio of each note to the
+preceding is /the twelfth root of two/.  For although that
+is a most irrational ratio, it ensures that twelve
+identical steps upward will bring us exactly one octave
+above our starting place.
+
+"In this temperament, /no/ interval is an integer ratio
+except the octave: they are all the slightest bit sharp or
+flat.  Yet it allows us to transpose songs into any key
+without distortion or dissonance.  In this way perfection yields
+to pragmatism... for though the harmony of the pasture
+is disturbed when we gird it with a fence, to do otherwise
+would be to let the wolf in."

data/data/the-codeless-code/en-qi/case-209.txt

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+Date: 2015-10-04
+Title: Submerged
+Number: 209
+Names: Bawan, Landhwa
+Topics: Java, garbage collection, memory leaks, collections, decorator pattern
+Geekiness: 3
+Tagline: In which we spring a leak.
+
+One fall afternoon, Java master [[Bawan]] heard that the
+monk [[Landhwa]] had been struggling with a straightforward
+data-extraction program.  Intrigued, Bawan visited the monk,
+who was slouching low in his chair.
+
+"The program runs out of memory," yawned Landhwa, who had no
+patience for such investigations.  "True, it processes many
+large files, but it does so one at a time, and retains only
+the smallest snippet from each."
+
+"Show me," said Bawan.
+
+The monk sighed, pointing to the screen.  "To process a
+file, I read its lines into a List of Strings.  This I
+search to find the section of interest: a few short lines at
+most.  I extract that via subList, and store it in this
+static Map.  The code could not be simpler."
+
+Bawan nodded.  "Meet me at midnight on the river dock, down
+in the village," he said.  "I know who can help us, and the
+journey is not a long one."
+
+That night Landhwa descended with a lantern to the foggy
+banks.  Spying a twinkling light on the water, he followed
+the boardwalk past dozens of small watercraft to find small
+master Bawan seated in the last rowboat at the end of the
+pier.  The master gestured to the oars.
+
+"Upstream," said Bawan.
+
+Landhwa pulled at the oars alone, while the master sat
+silently in the stern with arms folded.  Each stroke against
+the current was a painful struggle, yet somehow the little craft
+inched its way forward through the fog.  Hours passed.  Just when
+Landhwa was on the verge of collapse, Bawan ordered him to
+dock at an ramshackle pier far from the last village they'd
+passed.  The master looped a coil of rope around one of the
+pilings to anchor them.
+
+"We wait," said Bawan.
+
+Dawn came, scattering the night fog, but still no one
+approached from the banks.  When he happened to glance
+downriver, Landhwa discovered that their rowboat had been
+towing another boat by an underwater line many yards long.
+The lifting fog revealed another boat beyond that, and then
+another and another; and though the tenth passed out of
+sight beyond a bend in the river, Landhwa was certain that
+he had unwittingly towed every boat in the river dock behind
+them that night.

data/data/the-codeless-code/en-qi/case-21.txt

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+Date: 2010-11-21
+Title: Interrupt
+Number: 21
+Geekiness: 2
+Topics: loops, infinity
+
+A certain monk was reported to be unwilling to leave his
+terminal.  For two days he had gone without food or sleep.
+
+When the Java master investigated, he found the monk visibly
+shaken.  On screen was the following code, which at that
+moment was running under the debugger:
+
+|   while (true) {
+       /* do nothing */
+    }
+
+"I have asserted that the loop must execute while truth
+itself is true," said the monk.  "Yet if I hit the Interrupt
+key, the loop will terminate.  The implication is that, in
+that precise moment, /truth will no longer be true./ How can
+any of us dare to disturb the program?  We might bring chaos
+upon the world!"
+
+The Java master reached down and pulled the plug out
+of the wall.  The screen went black.
+
+"Now the loop can never be interrupted," said the master.
+
+The monk's mind was eased.

data/data/the-codeless-code/en-qi/case-210.txt

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+Date: 2015-10-13
+Title: Hygiene
+Number: 210
+Names: Zjing, Ruh Cheen, Banzen
+Topics: design reviews, code reviews, refactoring, Agile
+Geekiness: 2
+Tagline: In which we keep our mouths shut.
+Illus.0.src: Toothpaste.jpg
+Illus.0.title: Sure, it tastes great and prevents cavities, but it also makes your bottom teeth shift four places to the right.
+
+The abbot [[Ruh Cheen]] called young master [[Zjing]] on
+his monitor for their weekly teleconference.
+
+Ruh Cheen said, "As of today, our monks have completed four
+sprints [[#202|according to my plan]]: no design documents,
+no code reviews, no meddling by the masters.  Have you heard
+the good news?"
+
+Zjing bowed. "Velocity is at an all-time high, and morale is
+better than ever."
+
+"I plan to inform the Abbess this evening," said Ruh Cheen.
+"After which I will suggest that the entire temple adopt
+this practice.  But fear not!  I'm certain she will find
+some new task for the masters to perform."
+
+- - -
+
+Zjing called old master [[Banzen]] on her monitor, to report
+what had transpired.
+
+Banzen said, "Yesterday Ruh Cheen ordered the monks not to
+brush or floss. Today he observed that not a single monk has
+lost any teeth.  From this he has concluded that oral
+hygiene is worthless.  I fear that only one thing will
+change his mind."
+
+The young master was aghast.  "If I wait for gum disease to
+bring a patient to my chair, his mouth may be rotten past
+my ability to mend."
+
+"Yet what is our alternative, young master?" asked Banzen.
+"Force everyone to clean their teeth at knife-point?"
+
+"It has worked for us in the past," said Zjing.
+
+Banzen sighed.  "Has it, I wonder?  For we do not know which
+of our monks are conscientious, and which are merely
+cowards.  I am old; my knife-hand is unsteady,
+and I cannot be everywhere at once.  When I depart this
+earth, I must know that I leave behind a /temple/ -- not a
+crowd of aimless monks destined for toothless grins."

data/data/the-codeless-code/en-qi/case-211.txt

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+Date: 2015-10-18
+Title: No Magic
+Number: 211
+Names: Bawan, Hwídah, Banzen, Yíwen
+Topics: production support, dependency injection, transactions, connection pooling, Java
+Geekiness: 3
+Tagline: In which we are disillusioned.
+
+One night the nun [[Hwídah]] was summoned to the Central
+Command Courtyard by master [[Bawan]].
+
+"There is curious behavior on our 'Change Address' page,"
+said Bawan.  "The user fills out the form and elects to save
+their changes.  No error is reported.  No error is logged.
+The browser is sent to the 'User Profile' page as expected.
+Yet this page sometimes shows the old address instead of
+the new."
+
+"A swallowed exception, most likely," said Hwídah, wishing to
+be somewhere else.
+
+"There is more," said the master, shaking his head.  "If the
+'User Profile' is then reloaded repeatedly, it will
+sometimes show the old address and sometimes the new.
+No pattern can be discerned."
+
+"A caching problem, then," suggested the nun.
+
+"There is /still/ more," said the master.  "After several
+minutes have passed, only one of the two addresses will be
+shown forever after.  But again, it is sometimes the old
+address and sometimes the new."
+
+"I am out of guesses," sighed Hwídah. "A curse, perhaps, or
+an evil spirit."
+
+Bawan slapped her forehead.  "I have no patience for country
+superstitions, nun!" he said, turning to depart.  "There is
+no magic.  And the only evil spirits in this room
+are the ones you will witness tomorrow, if I learn that
+[[#204|Banzen's chosen pupil]] cannot be relied upon."
+
+- - -
+
+The nun called up the troublesome page, and found that all
+was as the master described.
+
+"Most curious," Hwídah said to the screen.  "Your face says
+sometimes this, and sometimes that.  Yet what is in your
+heart, I wonder?"
+
+The nun logged directly into the database, observing the
+record each time she changed it.  But what she found made
+even less sense: for although the screen alternated randomly
+between the old address and the new, the database showed the
+old address steadily.  Yet after a few minutes both would
+agree on either the old or new record forevermore.
+
+"There is no magic," Hwídah repeated.  "Every behavior,
+no matter how odd, has some rational explanation."
+
+- - -
+
+"...Yet I have no idea /what/ that explanation is," Hwídah
+complained to Yíwen.  "My only suspicion is that the
+transaction does not commit properly, which is why the
+changes do not appear when viewed from another database
+session."
+
+"A thousand pardons," yawned Yíwen, who was still in bed,
+squinting at Hwídah's lantern.  "But /my/ only suspicion is
+that I was asleep moments ago, for it is after one in the
+morning.  Is there no one else you may consult with?"
+
+"The courtyard is empty, as are my brains," said Hwídah.
+"Help me think!  The Controller calls a Service method to
+save the address.  The Service method is annotated as
+transactional.  The method is invoked, yet chaos results.
+Why?"
+
+"I know nothing about transaction management," said Yíwen,
+falling back on her pillow with closed eyes.  "I know only
+to put the annotations where they belong.  The rest is
+magic."
+
+"There is no magic," Hwídah said absently.  Then like a
+bolt she was out the door, bounding for the courtyard.
+
+- - -
+
+"When does a Service method commit a transaction?" asked
+Hwídah with a broad smile.
+
+"At four-thirty in the morning?" said master Bawan testily;
+for that was presently the time.
+
+"It /doesn't,/" said the nun.  "The proxy object which
+/decorates/ the Service object does.  Now, when does that
+proxy object /not/ do its job?"
+
+"This is another trick question, isn't it?" asked Bawan.
+
+"When it isn't used!" said Hwídah triumphantly.  "A mistake
+in the application's configuration caused the Controller to
+be injected with the Service object instead of its proxy."
+
+"Interesting," said Bawan.  "What of the page showing
+sometimes the old record and sometimes the new?"
+
+"Since there was no transaction," said Hwídah, "the database
+update was performed /without/ a commit, on a connection
+borrowed from the connection pool.  If a page happened to
+borrow that same connection it would show the new record.
+Otherwise it would show the old one."
+
+"Intriguing," said the master.  "And this behavior
+would cease after a while, because...?"
+
+"If that connection is borrowed for some /other/
+transaction elsewhere in the application, then either a
+commit or a rollback will occur," said Hwídah.  "And if it
+goes unused for too long, we roll it back and close it."
+
+"Excellent," said the master.  "No evil spirits, then.
+No magic.  Now go; get some sleep."
+
+- - -
+
+Hwídah crept into her bed, taking care not to wake Yíwen.
+Yet sleep did not come quickly to her.  Instead she lay
+on folded arms, staring up into the darkness.
+
+What /is/ magic, she wondered, but the achievement of things
+by hidden means?  Is the master of sleight-of-hand any less
+a magician than the enslaver of spirits?  Is it not perhaps
+/more/ satisfying to peek behind the curtain, to understand
+the intricate clockwork behind the facade, and to realize
+that with that knowledge comes true power?
+
+Hwídah was still pondering these things as she slipped, at
+last, into a deep slumber, undisturbed by the stirring of
+the Temple, the many ticks and tocks of the machine spinning
+up; water in the pipes, footsteps in the hall, gongs for
+breakfast, for meditation, for the start of a new day, a day
+like any other day, in this place of marvels.

data/data/the-codeless-code/en-qi/case-212.txt

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+Date: 2015-11-01
+Title: Seasons
+Number: 212
+Names: Qi, Spider Clan, Laughing Monkey Clan, Elephant's Footprint Clan, Ru Cheen, Shinpuru
+Topics: change, documentation, Agile
+Geekiness: 1
+Tagline: In which another leaf is turned.
+Illus.0.src: autumn-leaf.jpg
+Illus.0.title: It probably fell from a red-black tree.
+
+The development teams managed by abbot [[Ruh Cheen]] of the
+[[Spider Clan]] were quite pleased with the abbot's decision
+to [[#210|eliminate all design documents]].  For less time
+writing meant more time coding, which was their principal
+joy.  And since the Temple built its teams with
+developers from all three major clans, word soon
+spread throughout the
+[[Elephant's Footprint Clan|Elephant's Footprint]] and
+[[Laughing Monkey Clan|Laughing Monkey]],
+whose monks petitioned their own abbots to follow
+Ruh Cheen's example.
+
+As the flow of documentation slowed to a trickle,
+one voice that remained oddly silent was that
+of the old scribe [[Qi]], who was responsible for
+cataloging all Temple knowledge -- chiefly, the designs
+of its many systems.  A junior monk asked the scribe, "Why
+have you raised no objections to this new practice?  It
+seems destined to make you obsolete."
+
+The scribe replied, "I do not rebuke the sun for rising late
+in autumn."
+
+The monk reported to his fellows that the scribe had simply
+surrendered to the inevitable.  Yet one senior monk was
+suspicious.
+
+"Tell me his words exactly," said the senior monk.
+
+When the junior monk did this, the senior monk laughed and
+went to see the scribe.
+
+- - -
+
+"So," the senior monk said to Qi, "our scribe welcomes the
+shorter days.  Is it because he is fond of golden leaves and
+crisp apples?  Or has he simply tired of warm afternoons?"
+
+"Let he who dreams of endless summer spend a year in the
+desert," replied the scribe.
+
+"And let he who fancies autumn spend a day among the birds
+and beasts," said the senior monk, "for they know that
+colder days are coming.  What is your plan for the winter of
+your days, when your services are no longer required?
+Emigrate?  Hibernate?"
+
+"Innovate," said the scribe.  "And if I can invent nothing,
+I shall reinvent myself.  Let mathematicians talk of
+/pi/ and /e/ and /i/ and /phi/.  The only constant of
+consequence is /delta-t/, the Inconstant Constant, whose
+value no one knows, except that it always exceeds zero."
+
+"Yet if you remain here, you must witness the death of all
+you have created," observed the senior monk.
+
+The old scribe removed his spectacles to polish them.  "When
+the last leaf has fallen, ask [[#181|Shinpuru the gardener]]
+why he does not burn his rake for warmth."
+
+

data/data/the-codeless-code/en-qi/case-213.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+Date: 2015-11-08
+Title: The Imperfect Mirror
+Number: 213
+Names: Zjing, Elephant's Footprint Clan
+Topics: consistency, persistence layer, design, partially-filled objects, refactoring, modeling, isomorphism
+Geekiness: 3
+Tagline: In which our problem would be solved by a little reflection.
+
+<i>This week young master Zjing was reviewing the code of the
+[[Elephant's Footprint Clan]], whose monks were called upon
+to design database tables, create triggers, and build the
+persistence layers of the Temple's applications.</i>
+
+- - -
+
+On Monday she saw a table named CustomerAddress, //
+designed to hold the address of a Customer. //
+It had eight columns suited for this task.
+
+Likewise she found a /class/ named CustomerAddress, //
+which had eight corresponding properties. //
+/All is as it should be,/ thought the master.
+
+- - -
+
+On Tuesday she saw a table named BusinessAddress,  //
+designed to hold the address of a Business. //
+It had nine columns suited for this task.
+
+Likewise she found a /class/ named BusinessAddress, //
+which had nine corresponding properties. //
+/Just as I expected/, thought the master.
+
+- - -
+
+On Wednesday she saw a table named RegimentAddress, //
+designed to hold the address of a Regiment. //
+It had ten columns suited for this task.
+
+Likewise she sought a /class/ named RegimentAddress, //
+which had ten corresponding properties, //
+but no such class was found --
+
+    And while there was a class named Regiment, //
+    its address was kept in a BusinessAddress, //
+    where 'street' now held three unrelated fields, //
+
+    and 'postalCode' the 'baseNumber', //
+    and 'suite' the 'barracksNumber'. //
+    /Welcome to my nightmare,/ thought the master.
+
+- - -
+
+On Thursday she located the developer //
+who had declined to implement a RegimentAddress. //
+She asked him to explain his rationale.
+
+Reuse, the monk said proudly: //
+for is it not better to have less code to manage? //
+/Simple novice error,/ thought the master.
+
+- - -
+
+On Friday she checked the monk's code again, //
+for she had advised him on the virtues of consistency, //
+and was eager to see his progress.
+
+Once more she sought a class named RegimentAddress, //
+which had the ten expected properties, //
+but no such class was found --
+
+    Indeed, now BusinessAddress was gone, //
+    and CustomerAddress too.  And in their place, //
+    one Address class with /twenty/ properties --
+
+    crossing all three 'Address' tables, //
+    doomed forever to be partially filled. //
+    /EXPLETIVE DELETED/, thought the master.
+
+- - -
+
+On Saturday she sat by a pond, //
+regarded the reflection of three maple trees, //
+and thought:
+
+Three trees above, three trees below. //
+This mindless pond //
+has more good sense than that monk.