Re: is SIP an Emergent Property

On 2003.01.20, =?iso-8859-1?q?Dierk_K=F6nig_ <[email protected]> wrote:
> I've seen [...craftpersons...] performing in a way they cannot repeat,
> but still based on amazing skills, experience and wisdom acquired over
> numerous years.

If they couldn't repeat it, then it's still luck.

The fact that these people have the experience and wisdom generally
implies that the level of ability or quality of their performance is
predictable and repeatable.

I've seen programmers get code to pass tests "by luck" but I wouldn't
consider them skilled programmers necessarily because their performance
passes all the tests.  They're skilled because they can consistently
write code that makes tests pass intentionally.

My point?  Dan might have applied bookkeeping to a specific domain
(construction, lets say) and it subjectively appeared to him that it was
a remarkable thing.  However, unless he can apply it in some consistent
fashion, I'd assert that either he was wrong, or if he was right, it was
just luck.

If he can apply it repeatedly with consistent (expected) results, then
communicating how it works should simply be a matter of keeping a
journal (not the bookkeeping kind, of course -- no pun intended) and
publishing it.  Simply a "day in the life of a bookkeeper" type of thing
where he documents everything he does and how he does it, step by step,
so that you, I, or Ron Jeffries could do it as well.  We won't
necessarily understand what we're doing or why we're doing it, but given
the instructions to follow (like the CPU processing opcodes) we would
"be" Dan Palanza, doing what he does.

After enough repetition and time passing, we might begin to understand
deeper reasons for doing what we're doing and then we've learned
something.  Then, since we're intelligent people, we could use what
we've learned in the past and what we've just learned to synthesize new
ideas, and change the behavior to suit our individual specific needs.

The fact that Dan has yet to produce something so trivially simple as a
journal of his specific, exact activities, suggests to me that he's
either intentionally hiding something, or he's outright lying and isn't
even doing it himself, that's why there is no process to document.

Sadly, I can't see how this is even remotely on-topic for the SIP folks
here, but maybe someone can draw a connection.  If you can't, please
reply offline directly.  Thanks.

-- Dossy

-- 
Dossy Shiobara                       mail: [email protected] 
Panoptic Computer Network             web: http://www.panoptic.com/ 
  "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
    folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)

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