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Scatterlogic - Part Three

March 3, 2002

The NE's - A specially trained team of "Novelty Engineers".

The Novelty Engineers, or NE's, were in theory software engineers with the bonus gift of social skills, meaning that they could pass as salesmen. Unfortunately, they sort of fell between the two stools, and never quite achieved either in terms of effectiveness.

The NEs' self-appointed role was to take the product, in either beta or released form (not much difference between the two), and customise it with their own scripts and bangles, basically using the software in novel ways that had never originally been intended or even foreseen.

They would then present these novelty versions of the product to potential customers, giving the impression that the creaky, largely function-free novelty version is really what we have on offer, our flagship product.

The NE's would frequently ask various team members for a "quick demo" (usually lasting for a morning or an afternoon) of the product. The following week, the same NE would hunt down a different programmer (or even the same one), and ask for the exact same demo, e.g. "Wazzat, you must show me how to install and configure this software..."

(Wazzat thinks: The retard, I just showed him last week. Has he forgotten already??)

Out loud: "Sure thing, Nobby! Installation's an important part of the product... How about this afternoon?"

"Thanks, Wazzat. Now perhaps I can show you my latest novelty script, running on my perpetually overloaded and underpowered laptop."

It was not surprising that the NEs' laptops were overloaded and underpowered. They were actually quite powerful PCs, but the problem was that the NEs habitually installed everything and its brother, and made it all load automatically on startup: so they would have Oracle, SQL Server, the Scatterlogic server product they were supposed to be selling ("Excatter 4.0"), BizTalk, Microsoft Exchange Server, and three different MP3 players, all loaded into "memory" through the joyous miracles of file swapping, which over time would grind the hard disk down into a small, very smooth pebble.

"Okay," Wazzat replied, trying to sound interested, "show me your latest novelty script that will help to sell our server product."

"See," Nobby enthused, clicking unresponsive GUI buttons rapidly, "I can run this enterprise script over here... link it to this 'remote' script running in this window over here... and... presto!"

Slightly puzzled, Wazzat observed: "I see only primary-coloured blocks pausing for two seconds, then jumping across the screen. And your hard disk is going mental! What the hell is it doing?"

"I'm so clever!" crooned Nobby the Novelty Engineer. "It's an enterprise screen-saver. See, the client keeps checking the server for an update on the square ping-pong ball's position, and then moves it across the screen. My next version will turn it into a game. I can't wait to demo this to some potential customers. And wait, there's more! Watch what happens after the blocks reach the edge of the screen. They're supposed to rebound, but this is even better... wait for it... there! The screen turns blue! Brilliant!"

"Nobby, that's a Windows system crash. The software was never intended to do what you just did..."

"Oh. But still... our blue-chip clients will love it! All those primary colours, they get me all invigorated."

The Website.

For reasons known only to the esteemed company directorship, maintenance of the company Website was suddenly allocated to a couple of junior sales people, one Thursday.

The staff watched with dismay the swift and painful entropy of the entire site, as it gradually started to fray at the edges and split at the seams.

It used to herald a singular flow of energy, guiding the reader without resistance from one end of the site to the other. However, as the junior sales duo took over, the site descended quickly into a broken and sad, cracked version of its former self.

Broken images began to appear, giving the site a horribly amateurish "home page" feel, as in "here's a picture of my cat" (pointing to a broken link).

Usually, the broken images were caused by "local" URLs creeping into the main site, such as:

C:\Documents and Settings\Billy N.o'Brains\Scatterlogic\Web site\3\WhyWeAreGreat.bmp

Despite being shown what the problem was, and how to avoid it, the junior sales people were unable to cope with the complexities of Microsoft FrontPage - and the broken images just kept reappearing, smothering the floundering site like fungal spores.

The "99 days to Beta!" stock ticker.

A great amount of effort was spent producing a "stock ticker" which counted down the number of days remaining until the first Beta release (the date of which was "set in stone").

The ticker showed the number of days remaining, in large dramatic letters spinning across the screen. To magnify the effect, the ticker was also projected onto the inside wall of the office, sending chills down the programmers' spines.

At least, that was the intended effect. What actually happened was that only the project manager took the countdown seriously - all the programmers knew how ludicrous the deadline was, hence paid no attention whatsoever to the threats of "there'll be trouble, heads will roll" if the deadline was not met.

The ticker counted down... 10 days to Beta! 9... 8... When it reached 0 days to Beta!, nary a ripple emerged from the programmers' tar pit.

Then it started counting up again.

After 20 days to Beta! had been revisited, the ticker was quietly taken down.

Regular arguments with complex analogies

Calvin's habit of killing arguments with spurious analogies had an interesting effect on certain other members of the development department.

They would frequently try to emulate Calvin's success in this regard, by introducing their own bizarre analogies into important technical discussions. Their attempt to instantly win the argument almost always backfired, as the opponent would respond with a counter-argument based on the analogy (rather than on the actual thing being discussed).

Then the discussion would suddenly descend into an increasingly complex moire of interrelated analogies and sub-analogies, that had less and less to do with the problem at hand.

You could say that Scatterlogic put the anal in analogy.

For example (typical conversation between three programmers):

A: "Guys, I think this part of the design isn't quite right - these Java Beans just don't fit together. Perhaps we should redo it. What do you think?"

B: "Well you know, sometimes if a car is broken, you just need to find a new part - you don't need to invent a new form of propulsion system!"

C: "Aah, but perhaps you would... because what if you ended up inventing Solar Power?"

B: "Well in that case, you would still need to fix your car first so that you can get to your laboratory before you invent your new Solar Power mechanism!"

C: "But you could take the bus..."

B: "Which uses a diesel engine! So we're still no closer."

A: "Uhh guys, what exactly does this have to do with my Java Beans?"

C: "Bean powered cars! Now that would be a solution..."

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