 |
|
|
|
If you’ve listened to these essays for any noticeable time at all you will be aware by now that I am heavily involved with computers.
You’re probably also quite well aware of the concept of conspiracy theories and of secret societies.
What you may not be aware of is just how the subjects of these two awarenesses intertwine.
You see in order to develop any computer-cred at all it’s not enough to merely be able to write C# code, or Java, or PHP, or to be able to run up a Flash besotted Web Site at the click of a mouse; nor yet to be able to troubleshoot networks, and be on speaking terms with CISCO, and to know your router from your rear; nor is it merely to be able to find those pictures of your granny you took the other week and then lost in one of the damn things: No you must be part of a, or even of several ...
You must be part of...
You must...
Well I can’t actually tell you what you must be part of because I am up to my Khyber in NDAs (or Non-Disclosure Agreements as the non-cognoscenti call them)---and so this looks like being a really, really short essay, and even more pointless than usual.
Um...
Um... The Hell with it, even I don’t think I can get away with three minutes of complete silence---so full speed ahead and damn the NDAs, I say!
Now prepare yourself, close the curtains and send the children out of the room and... and you know ... ... huddle:
Well here goes---
In order to develop any computer-cred at all you must be part of as many beta tests as you can!
Well! Since your collective intake of breath at that stunning revelation has not, as expected, sucked the microphone right out of my hand; I have to assume that most of you are nonplussed by this what you obviously take to be a not-very-stunning revelation at all; but you see that’s the whole point : it’s secret! It’s a hidden mystery. Cut off far from the computer maddened crowd. Hedged about with impenetrable lawyers, and frightening rituals involving long, complicated documents signed, and in extreme cases entirely written, in your own blood.
But in plain terms, stripped of its mystery and its hocus and a good deal of its pocus, a beta test is merely a halfway house between the gleam in a developer’s eye and a finished product, a house wherein mature and responsible pillars of society (and this is purely in respect to their computers and their ability therewith---I wouldn’t dare make any unsupportable claims for these guys about anything in real society) are more or less secretly given pre-release copies to test and play with, and crash ...and in extreme cases burn.
Oh, and I should add that this only applies to non-Microsoft products: Microsoft of course, is big enough and certainly bad enough to omit this stage from their product development---there are no NDAs and the fact that you are testing a viciously unstable product, coiled like a spring to take your eye out, comes as a complete surprise---or more accurately, shock.
And, in spite of all this being the province of only the select and secret few, it really goes without saying that, this after all being the twenty-first century, that life, it turns out, exactly emulates a beta test (and for most of you unlucky and unsuspecting sods it’s just like one of bloody Microsoft’s evil stealth ones), and all the while it is we beta testers with out secret NDAs, and our funny handshakes, and even funnier screen names who are the only ones really in the know.
... Well of course---Oh! Dear!---that now includes you too!
So since I’ve done the unforgivable, and made you all unofficial beta testers, I suppose I should finally reveal the Real Secret, the Beta Test Code: You see just as soon as everything in your life starts to work out for you and you’ve got all the bugs fixed and you finally reach your version 1.0 release date ... guess what?
You’re obsolete.
The next version is in testing.
You go “Gak!”
And...
Requiescat for now
from
Richard Howland-Bolton
|
 |
 |
<-- Go Back |
|
|
| Home | Essays | Notes | Gallery | Miscellany | Contact |
All contents including writing, cartooning, music, and photography unless otherwise specified are
copyright © 1965-2023 howlandbolton.com and Richard Howland-Bolton. All Rights Reserved.
All logos and trademarks on this site are property of their respective owners. | Web work* by 
*as distinct from Wetwork
  |
|
|
