The longer you worked as a programmer, the less trust you have on human. There are so many irregularities in human intervention in a otherwise relatively simple process. People don’t necessary follow rules. They miss out things here and there. They tend to be creative when there is no point to be. In other words, when we deal with data-critical process, I would rather work with machines than humans.
Not only I feel less trust on humans in those areas, the fact is, a lot of time and effort have been spent to correct those human errors. From the place I worked, I would say 90% of the issues are caused by humans. In other words, a programmer like me is spending most of his/er time not on developing new product, but fixing and correctly data issues. And believe me, it is a very tedious job.
On the other hand, when you think about it, is it the problem of humans or is it the problem of the systems we build? Are we building systems that are essentially inhuman? While complaining on the irregularities in human intervention, have we been thinking too much as a machine and forget the our users are just not that? Are we forcing them to operate (which is an machine-language) like a machine?
These kinds of questions are best manifested in the Sci-Fi genre of literature and movies. In Star Trek TNG we have android Lt. Commander Data seeking to be more human (or here). At the same time, we have the Vulcan trying to be more machine-like since the time of the Vulcan / Romulan schism.
Why is that? Does it reflect the nature of all conscious beings seeking to be something else? Is it the incentive of all progresses? Or is it a temptation to fall into the trap of infinite incontentment? Can one go without the other? Or is it the necessary evil which we have to bear with? ¶
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