The Algorithm
Tuesday • December 13th 2022 • 11:12:03 pm
We are all aware of the good news, programming makes a person handsome, well mannered, and creative.
But, surely, there must also be bad news, and there is.
Just two moments ago, already after dark, I’ve noticed some traffic on my way to get dinner.
And there was a way around, but it goes trough an industrial area.
Which is to say, winding little driveways.
I had whole five seconds to make the turn, and I did, it felt like adventure.
Now, this is where, cool-bad part stars.
Because just as soon as I turned, So did the car behind me.
They were non-programmers, and you could tell.
They turned way too quickly, and followed, too close for a coder.
Programmers are cautions, slow and safe, and two to three cars distance.
And of course programmers, are nuts about algorithms.
We all know that if you are in a maze, if you just keep taking the right.
It will eventually poop you out somewhere, at worst, or on the other side of the wall by where you entered.
Now, for non programmers, this is a cool fact.
For programmers, a damn algorithm – no buts.
Seconds, freaking seconds, after the two of us, got off the main road.
There was a right, it was too soon.
Obviously too son to turn, but an algorithm is an algorithm.
Life will present you, with only a couple opportunities… to test it.
So I made a right, I could actually see the car behind me hesitate.
They wanted to keep going forward, like a normal person…
And here you can really see the trouble, the disconnect between programmers and normal people.
They assumed I was right, an expert even, because only a man utterly experienced in this neighborhood…
Would take that right, and so early on.
Now, we were both part of the adventure, engaged in processing the right turn algorithms.
And then I saw car lights on the road, and I was like, that can’t be right - it is too soon,
And that is when I felt, a sense of discovery in the non-programmer behind me.
The distance between out cars, cheerfully decreased.
And as you can imagine, the industrial little road ended, with a grassy hill.
About 25 feet, away from the road... that we were not getting on.
You won’t believe me when I say this, but the car behind me rolled its eyes.
It first slowed down, as if to say, “Are you furrecking kidding me”.
And then made this enormous, ENORMOUS, arch, into a parking lot near by.
That was the motion that, represented the rolling of the eyeballs.
They allowed me to go first again, and followed, but now more cautiously.
Having realized, that I was not in a hurry, that I was not an expert.
That I was in-fact, not navigating, Furrecking around, in some weird way.
And yes,another right popped up, and it did feel weird.
It didn't seem to be the right right, but riles are rules.
I took it, and almost immediately noticed, a left turn, that was in the right direction.
But the algorithm said no, so I kept on driving.
Cheerfully and blissfully, lost, testing an algorithms, where I was the NPC for a change.
I could feel the person behind me cursing, because they realized this was no longer a shortcut.
This was the long way, the programmer way – the adventurer way.
But, it unfortunately turned out, that this was the right road.
We were never going to explore that left, together.
And I wanted to get out of my car, and smile and wave and yell:
“We were testing an algorithm”, but they already knew I was a programmer.
They could totally tell, I was testing the Right Hand Rule; and were happy, that we were finally parting ways.