In the beginning

HOW DID ALL THIS START ANYWAY?

"Here comes the sun" - The Beatles

The first question any sane person would ask when looking at this blog is 'why?' Why would anyone want to put together such a random collection of thoughts and stories? Well, it is said that some tales grow in the telling, and this is certainly an example of one that has. But, you may ask, if this is a 'tale' then are the stories true? Well although some would describe them as apocryphal I would not, mainly because I didn’t know what apocryphal means;

apocryphal (a'pokrifal), a and sb. A. adj. Of doubtful authenticity; spurious, fictitious, false, fabulous, mythical.

“Fabulous”, “mythical”, maybe this is apocryphal after all, although in my experience, real events often turn out to be stranger than fiction, but perhaps these things only happen to me, perhaps I'm unique, - I don't thing so!

So, where did this 'tale' begin, was it round the campfire, or while 'riding the range? No, it started in a bar. Let me explain, have you ever been away from home on a seminar or training course, or on some assignment. And while you were away, did you go to a bar, or pub, or restaurant, or cafe with some colleagues, other Systems professionals? If you did then at some point in the evening, or early in the morning (usually well past one a.m.), having consumed the required amount of beer, or wine or vodka, you discover that you can solve all the worlds IT problems. The trouble is that you discover that you’ve forgotten all the solutions the following morning. Not to be beaten, you vow that the next time you will write it all down, and you do, the next time you carefully document all those carefully constructed solutions. But there is a problem, and the problem is that you discover the next morning that you cannot make head nor tail of the random scribbling you have found in your pocket. One reason for this is that all writing equipment in bars and restaurants is designed to soak up spilt liquids; you can peel the printed surface off a beer mat but your writing will be ineligible. Napkins, tablecloths, they all exhibit the same problems. A solution would be to have peel off beer mats – the “peel it ©” (please take note 3m).

This particular event that started this was a conference in Seville, for some strange reason this city is actually pronounced Seviyha, and then there is Barthelona. Given that 332 million people speak Spanish, that’s an awful lot of people with a pronunciation impediment, and then there’s Birmingham. The particular bar in question was called the Forum, and I spent so much time there over a week that there was a rumour going around that I had bought it. I hadn't, but I had invested a considerable number of Pesetas on the owner's future liquidity.

So it was that it eventually happened. I found that the morning after a particularly productive 'solve all the world's problems' discussion I was able to remember the previous night's solutions. As you may expect, the conversation had not been totally serious, in fact it was hysterical.

A few days after the momentous occasion in the Forum Bar I was asked if I would like to give a presentation at a future conference. 'Why not' I thought, after all I could now share my new found wisdom with others. But how would I describe this presentation, 'Discussions in a Bar', 'A Funny Thing Happened to me at the Forum', 'Anarchy in the IT.', 'A Hitchhikers Guide to Systems', or 'The Thoughts of Terence Thorpe'. What I needed was a title which gave the audience some advance warning of the strange ideas which were going to be presented, and also the way in which this was going to be done. In the end the title picked itself, it had to be 'Zen and the Art of....'

And so 'Zen and the Art of Software Development' was born, and six months later saw the light of day in front of a small audience in Geneva. To say I was nervous about the reaction would be a gross understatement, I was petrified and wondered why on earth I had volunteered to do this, and having volunteered why didn't I decide on a more conventional subject; 'A User's Experience of CASE Tools' or 'The Design of Large Scale Systems' or something like that, a presentation that would not be risky, where people could nod wisely (or even nod while they were sleeping) and applaud politely at the end. Instead I had created a monster, no one would like it, it was too controversial, it questioned current views, and worst of all - it was supposed to be funny! In Geneva! In Switzerland! At a computer conference!