A typical lazy evening. Aided by a glass of red, I sat at the desk tweaking my fantasy football team. What could be better? My wife sat on the bed, looking at property on the laptop. Click, that's nice, click, like what they've done there, click, look at those curtains, click, what kind of human being would paint a room that colour?
"So," she said, looking up from the bed. "How do computers work?" Find a man emersed in all things football and knock him off his perch. Not an easy question either. Mo, a software developer, was momentarily at a loss. What he needed was a cloak of anonymity.
My wife's lack of computing understanding has always amused me. Note, she's far smarter than me, far better at doing life, far more aware, far more eloquent. But she simply uses computers, to her the computer is one of life's great imponderables. As long as they work she is happy. I, on the other hand, am a computer geek. After working in my current job for close to six years, and five years of marriage, my wife confesses to know very little about what I do. (As an MI5 operative that suits me fine). He works in IT, she'll tell her friends, something to do with finance.
Roused from fantasy football bliss, I struggled impotently to answer the question, deciding to keep things simple. "Think of it in terms of layers," I said, "a bit like an onion. Putting it very simply, at the core is the hardware. The memory, which stores data and instructions, the processor, which executes the instructions and all the input and output devices. The operating system sits on top of all this, so you don't need to worry about ones, zeros, data and instructions. You just use it."
Suspecting that her interest was waning I cut to the chase, leading on to my own career. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to fill her in. "In the olden days coding was a cryptic kettle of fish, you had to understand nonsense like machine code that looks like someone was just having a laugh. These days writing code is very different."
I pulled my soap box out of my pocket, blew off the dust and climbed onto it. "Modern languages have evolved to be extremely clean and legible, shielding us from boring stuff like memory and whatnot. Integrated development environments make it a lot more fun. Clean code written to high standards and following best practices is actually very understandable. You could look at some of my code and know exactly what it is doing."
"Right," she said, "come and look at this house."
The "sequel" to Perdido Street Station, one of my absolute favourites, and I'm enjoying it just as much, if not more so.
The worlds and races Mieville creates are simply superb. If you've not read this series and you like "weird fiction" then please crack on and get reading.
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Mo I actually checked to see your post at 630am but I was too sleepy to comprehend yet.
I know the same situation you're in! All my ex girlfriends would never understand any detail of my work.
I wonder if your wife will now tell people you program onions and stuff.
I'll bet she tuned you out as soon as you said "onion". Should have related it to decorating, or chocolate, or sex. Somehow.
Well, what the hell else would she say? Is there something you think is missing?
Oh, I know what it is....
The link.
Yep. I don't understand computers either. Nor cars. But as long as they work, I'm happy.
:-)
I was following right along until you switched to a foreign language. Could you repeat that in English please?
That's great!
Now could you please explain the need for a Fantasy Football Team?
It's like this: the computer itself, the hardware, is like the foundation of your house. Software is like the electricity and plumbing (all the "working bits") and the OS is like the house itself - what binds it all together. None of them is worth a damn without the rest.
As for coding environments, I could go off on a tangent about THAT all day. Is your code well-structured and commented, Mo?
I bet the characters in Microserfs never had this problem.
Sounds like a lot of discussions at our house. If I'm having trouble sleeping, I ask him to explain the current mortgage crisis.
Yep, you lost me right about the same time you lost your wife.
You were good up to that point though.
I had to come over because The Rambler mentioned ya. :)
And now for the most important question: what did you think of the house, then?
That woman is brilliant!
I'm like your wife (and do spend time looking at real estate for fun), while my hubs is less techie than even I am. He still asks me to load photos into his facebook profile.
The beautiful thing about it all was that she actually allowed you to finish speaking! When it comes to technology, we don't really care how it works as long as it works :)
Did she even let you start addressing pointers, linked lists, and btrees? Or how Intel flips the bytes where other architectures are left to right oriented as you would expect?
I'll bet you didn't get a chance to cover stack vs. heap differences either.
Ooooh, I like how she operates!
And I admit, Mo, my eyes started to glaze over there for a minute. Sorry.
So, did you like the house?
Ya, I'm more in the 'it should just work' category. How's your dream team doing, though?
101110101 00101 1111001.
What did I just say? Is it dirty?
The thing I most loved was your mixed metaphors – I think ‘In the olden days coding was a cryptic kettle of fish…’ was my favourite.
I ask my husband questions like that all the time with complete faith that he'll have the answer, regardless of whether it's his field or not.
It's almost at the point that asking how computers work is like asking why men are so infatuated with breasts.
It shouldn't have to be explained.
I thought the onion analogy was quite smart. However, mentioning "code" and offering to show some was verbal Ambien. LOL.
roflmao.
I like her. :D
And I STILL don't understand computers! You lost me at "onion" or it might even have been at "colour."
Do fantasy football teams wear bikinis or thongs?
I don't remember much else about what you were talking about, I woke up in my own drool on the desk.
yeah, you kind of lost me at the onion thing-y 'cause then i started to imagine caramelized onions.
sorry.
i'll try to read it again and replace the food analogy using dog poo.
andy
Hope you've got Eduardo in your team, he's going to score shitloads this season.
lol- well, she should of known better than to ask. It's like asking my fiance an engineering questions. I only really wanted to know about 60% of what he ever tells me.
Ladytruth had an interesting comment. Are you glad that she let you finish talking? I usually cut my husband off if has lost me or if it was not the question that I asked. He gets sex when ever he wants it...
so its all good.
My wife does exactly the same thing. We even do open house inspections of places we can't afford and have no intention of buying.
Altidore. Average striker, below average teams. Goal ratio...should be okay. Probably cheap, too.
10 print "what?"
20 goto 10
run
You lost me right after onion. sorry. OH and did you like the house?
I'm with your wife.. better not to understand it all.
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81. I remember the good old days when one could spend two hours inputting a program from 'Sinclair User' magazine, only to fail because the magazine had missed out a comma or somesuch!
I'm afraid I, too, am only a user, but would dearly love to have a deeper understanding of the machinations of my little box!
Personally, prefer the "they're just magical" explanation. Kinda like Fantasy Football.
Upon reading your onion analogy (because I am 10) I thought "Ogres are like onions". They have layers too you know? Perhaps Parfaits would have held her interest..not everybody likes onions.
Oh...and to keep up with the theme, I know nothing about computers. Except when they are broken..I know when that happens.
What really cracks me up is I completely understood what you were saying. The roles are reversed in our house - hubby will want to know how the computer works, and if I dust off my soapbox and try to explain it to him, he gets a glazed look in his eyes. But the same goes when he's talking from his Electronics Engineering standpoint, so we're even. ;)
Um...what?
I'm with your wife. I still can hardly fathom how telephone wires work, or fax machines.
I actually feel about 10% smarter now. Thanks
I thought that was a rather good analogy Mo!
I would've used a chocolate eclair, myself.
Definitely not a geek here, but I think comparing it to an onion was simply brilliant... but then you lost her with the followup explanation of exactly how the onion thing works.
MI5 operative, good one.
Its just the way it is with us women folk. Someone asks what my husband does and I tell them Uh...something with computers. He used to get impossibly pissed off when I would say computer repair person. So now I say Um computers..networks...servers. Uh he fixes computers.
Ha! I had to giggle at "better at life." My husband says that to me all the time, too.
And I also have no idea how computers work. Huh.
whenever someone asks me about computers because they think i know everything about them, i usually just make a smartass joke and play it off.
This sounds like my life of conversation with my software engineer of a father.
When I started blogging and got interested in web design, I'm pretty sure he wept tears of joy.
When you say fantasy football I'm guessing you mean what we call soccer here in the US. Nevertheless I play fantasy football based on the NFL and I'm married so I can totally relate.
Hate to say it. . .but I'm 100% with your wife. . .
I just use 'em. . .
You got to the onion and I started thinking about Shrek.
I have absolutely no clue what my husband does for a living. And when he talks to me about it, I go to my happy place.
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