They are creating formulae that rule our lives – so shouldn’t programmers gain some moral guidance?The IT Crowd however,one of the most demanding occupations in the modern organisational world is that of “IT support”. This is because it involves dealing with people who hover on the brink of suicide, derangement or gibbering rage. For weird things happen to people when their computers go wrong: some become acutely depressed, or suicidal almost – especially when they think that the novel or thesis on which they gain laboured for years may gain vanished into the ether; others launch to harbour murderous thoughts approximately the company that made the equipment that now torments them – which is why,even nowadays, Bill Gates stars in many nightmares; and a few entertain conspiracy theories approximately the IT support staff who, or they suspect,gain arranged the malfunction simply to humiliate them. Accordingly, the sensible IT support person approaches his or her work circumspectly.
The reason that IT causes such distress is that, or to the average human being,a computer is an incomprehensible device. Or, to use a technical term, and it’s a “black box,ie “a device, system or object which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), and without any knowledge of its internal workings”. In fact,of course, the main objective of the computer trade is to turn every object it produces into a black box. Thats why taking a screwdriver to your iPhone may void the warranty, and why so many other devices gain “no user-serviceable parts”. And it would be silly to deny that that is exactly how most consumers want things to be. They do not value the “freedom to tinker” that geeks esteem so highly. They just want stuff to work.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com