This is my entry for the Weeping Horse award for the most boring blog post of the year. Another item stuffed in the back of the drawer of things I didn’t know what to do with.
We were told to buy one of these when I started my Computing Masters course in 1980. Except for the square and rectangular boxes, I never used it.
What is it? I don’t really know, other than to say it is a template for drawing symbols used in computer flowcharting. I hardly gave it a second glance until now. It relates to an approach to programming that was becoming outdated before the course began. I think it was used for designing COBOL programs that took ages to run with no human input once started. I have no idea how to use the symbols. What is an auxiliary operation, a terminal interrupt, or a transmittal tape? And there were even more symbols on the packet it came in, on both sides.
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| The packet it came in, and an example of how the symbols are used |
The course taught us a different technique called Jackson Structured Programming (JSP) which was more suited to programs that interact with the user, as in most of today’s software. JSP defines programs as combinations of sequences, selections, and repetitions. It uses a notation consisting only of rectangles, plain for sequences, marked O for selections and * for repetitions. If you adhere to its rules for putting them together, you avoid the unintelligible, spaghetti-like tangle of code that defeats most novice programmers. I found it invaluable.
Later, I used something called Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM). This employed a further set of techniques with names such as Data Flow Diagrams, Logical Data Structures, and Entity Life Histories. It organised data into the most flexible and efficient form, which was helpful in systems that handle complex information, such as customer orders, stock control, or bus timetables. This figure shows some of the notations. I could probably just about remember enough to explain them further, but it would be gobbledygook.
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| Jackson Structured Programming example from my Masters Dissertation SSADM Logical Data Structure and Data Flow Diagram |
I know it is off the end of the autistic spectrum, but I enjoyed this kind of stuff and took great pride in it (and in what I was paid to do it). If the design is right, software works as intended without bugs that need fixing all the time. At the computer company I worked at, our large and complicated service management system did what it was supposed to do. It was used throughout Europe and elsewhere. The design was right. I would say that, today, companies like Amazon and Ebay largely have it right. So why don’t government systems such as for the DSS Carers Allowance? Why didn’t the Post Office? There used to be a saying based on the quality-time-cost triangle which was that you can have it good, you can have it quick, and you can have it cheap, but you can’t have it all three.
To come back to the template, it was not used. Like with books, do not buy anything a university or college recommends until it is needed. It might not be.
What to do with it? It takes up little space. It is back in the drawer with all the other useless rubbish.
I must show this post to my husband. I'm sure it will make him sigh and smile and swear!
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean he wasn't a fan of systems design methods?
DeleteBelieve it or not, but some of these shapes are still used to describe certain processes at the insurance company that is my main employer.
ReplyDeleteI know I have a nerdy and/or autistic streak, which was much more prononunced when I was younger; like you, I enjoy such kind of work that uses logically understandable rules (sometimes I am in the position of making the rules myself) and yields orderly, reliable results when applied correctly.
Some like them and some find them irritating, in which case they shouldn't be allowed near a system. It always takes longer to correct mistakes than to get it right first time. But, yes, you need the right kind of nerdy streak to take satisfaction in using them.
DeleteOh dear. Memories of my time as a Business/Systems Analyst and the OU SQL course I struggled with (although I somehow managed to pass).
ReplyDeleteI didn't like SQL either. Managed to avoid it most of the time.
DeleteI wonder how old our mobile phones, tablets and computers will look in fifty years times? Not that we will be around to know.
ReplyDeleteI still have my 20 year old mobile phone, and it still works on pay as you go. Battery runs out quick now.
DeleteI still have my slide rule hidden away in a cupboard - would anyone under 70 even recognise what is is?
DeletePerhaps the subject of your first blog post, Will.
DeleteWell, at least you got your money's worth out of it by keeping it all these years! Hahahaha!
ReplyDeleteAnd a blog post. Old objects bring back a surprising number of memories.
DeleteI have a couple of these which I used for art purposes, largely embossing shapes into paper. And my late husband's set of French curves which had some scientific purpose, have been great in my embroidery practice! These things aren't useless, they just need a new application.
ReplyDeleteI agree about commercial websites working well. They don't cheap out. Municipal and county etc do, with sad results that affect people's lives. One big exception: US social security has worked flawlessly for me for decades, likewise Medicare. Credit where due.
What a good idea for re-purposing.
DeleteI was very impressed by the UK tax system in how cleverly it adjusted my tax code when I made some pension changes recently. The systems people clearly know what they are doing. But then, no expense spared when systems deal with enormous sums of money (not mine unfortunately).
I just found my son's old cell phone from when he was in high school. An old flip phone. When my son upgraded, he passed his old phone on to Tim. Tim used it for probably 10 years, and it was a sad day when that gadget died. He's kept it though. It serves no purpose. I will drop it in a used phone bin the next time I go to the store. My suggestion? If you have no use for that, I'd put it up on a 'free' site. If it goes, you've done your part. If it doesn't, well, chuck it.
ReplyDeleteI like Boud's suggestion. It may have a use yet.
DeleteYour post reminds me of my time writing software for a lab data system. Get the design right and the software will do what it says on the tin with minimal maintenance. The biggest problem was mission creep, we had to be ruthless over stopping management adding bells and whistles - I think that this is one area where public sector systems really suffer, too many fingers in the pie.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest system I worked with was built as about 20 separate modules around a shared database. It helped enormously that fiddling with one part didn't mess up the other parts.
DeleteAs I said to my son-in-law's father at the Christmas table - "That's not how my brain works". He had just been disentangling a metal puzzle that he found in his Christmas cracker.
ReplyDeleteIt's called aptitude, YP. Although you might call it something else.
DeleteMy various aptitudes are drawn by other things. I doubt that Stewart's father has ever written a poem or painted a picture or watched a football match and understood what was going on out there. It's like Maths - I always detested that subject at school and found it intensely boring - but I guess that you were stimulated by all that numerical problem solving.
DeleteI am very proud of my Grade F (i.e. bad fail) in A Level Maths.
DeleteLooks like a decent straightedge.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely straight, and quite long too.
DeleteIf I came across that thing somewhere, I would have no idea that it was meant for flowcharts. But I do remember seeing flowcharts like those years ago, with different shapes signifying types of events or actions. My mother studied both COBOL and Fortran, neither of which you hear much about these days.
ReplyDeleteCOBOL seemed like repeatedly shuffling papers from one shelf to another until you'd got them in the right order.
DeleteGreat post. It appeals to me that someone somewhere was designing the overall flow of things before the 1s ans 0s were set in order. Despite being mathematically and logically inclined programming never appealed. I think it was the incomprehensible language used by my lecturers at uni who must have assumed that all students came from a background of having learned the basics at school. I had been 10 years out of school before I went to uni and a lot had changed in the tech world between school and tertiary education. At school we had been punching cards (and that was boring and tedious too).
ReplyDeleteI went nearly 10 years late, too, but computers were rare when I left school. When a friend took a computing option on his business studies course at college it seemed very adventurous.
DeleteI should have a cabinet filled with said award myself. :D
ReplyDeleteIf it doesn't take up too much space, then I tend to keep things I've hardly used.
I have more where that came from. Rubik cube and juggling bags for starters.
DeleteHaving studied German, I have shelves of German books that were bought and never read (or read but forgotten). It's like with some school maths. I have never needed to use algebra or cosigns or tangents again in my adult life. What was the point of them?
ReplyDeleteI have books they said to buy too, and then they change the course and they are not seeded.
DeleteThe algebra and trig. forms the maths behind computer graphics, for one thing, but unless you want to code your own software tools, and few do, they are not needed. I suppose you learn whether or not you like it.
Like Boud, I've always used that kind of template for art work--never computer work. Explains why I majored in English and not math (shudder).
ReplyDeleteI think maths can be as exciting as art, would you believe, but they crush the wonder out of it as school.
DeleteIt reminds me of the patterns you can buy for patchwork. Hopeless at maths, geometry and alegebra at school. Though to be honest I blame it on the teacher who wrapped my knuckles with a ruler and left me scared at her lessons.
ReplyDeleteThelma, I commiserate with you. My algebra teacher would throw a large chalkboard eraser at your head if you gave an incorrect answer. I learned early on to sit in the back of the classroom. Whenever he asked for answers I would drop my pencil on the floor and then bend down so as to be out of his line of sight. Got a fair amount of exercise out of that manoeuvre. :)
DeletePrecisely what I mean by crushing the wonder out of it in previous comment. When I had to teach computing, I always tried to say why things I liked were interesting or exciting, and possibly even managed to get it across sometimes. I remember another lecturer who used to treat those who didn't understand something with sarcasm, which I thought wrong.
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