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Errors
Ever since this book came out, people have been asking me how I came to write on such an unusual topic. I've pondered their question and decided to add this foreword as an answer.
As far as I can remember, I've always been interested in errors. I was a smart kid, but didn't understand why I made mistakes. And why other people made more.
I yearned to understand how the brain, my brain, worked, so I studied everything I could find about brains. And then I heard about computers.
Way back then, computers were called "Giant Brains." Edmund Berkeley wrote a book by that title, which I read voraciously.
Those giant brains were "machines that think" and "didn't make errors." Neither turned out to be true, but back then, I believed them. I knew right away, deep down at age eleven that I would spend my life with computers.
Much later, I learned that computers didn't make many errors, but their programs sure did.
I realized when I worked on this book that it more or less summarizes my life's work, trying to understand all about errors. That's where it all started.
I think I was upset when I finally figured out that I wasn't going to find a way to perfectly eliminate all errors, but I got over it. How? I think it was my training in physics, where I learned that perfection simply violates the laws of thermodynamics.
Then I was upset when I realized that when a computer program had a fault, the machine could turn out errors millions of times faster than any human or group of humans.
I could actually program a machine to make more errors in a day than all human beings had made in the last 10,000 years. Not many people seemed to understand the consequences of this fact, so I decided to write this book as my contribution to a more perfect world.
Not perfect, of course, but more perfect. I hope it helps.
As far as I can remember, I've always been interested in errors. I was a smart kid, but didn't understand why I made mistakes. And why other people made more.
I yearned to understand how the brain, my brain, worked, so I studied everything I could find about brains. And then I heard about computers.
Way back then, computers were called "Giant Brains." Edmund Berkeley wrote a book by that title, which I read voraciously.
Those giant brains were "machines that think" and "didn't make errors." Neither turned out to be true, but back then, I believed them. I knew right away, deep down at age eleven that I would spend my life with computers.
Much later, I learned that computers didn't make many errors, but their programs sure did.
I realized when I worked on this book that it more or less summarizes my life's work, trying to understand all about errors. That's where it all started.
I think I was upset when I finally figured out that I wasn't going to find a way to perfectly eliminate all errors, but I got over it. How? I think it was my training in physics, where I learned that perfection simply violates the laws of thermodynamics.
Then I was upset when I realized that when a computer program had a fault, the machine could turn out errors millions of times faster than any human or group of humans.
I could actually program a machine to make more errors in a day than all human beings had made in the last 10,000 years. Not many people seemed to understand the consequences of this fact, so I decided to write this book as my contribution to a more perfect world.
Not perfect, of course, but more perfect. I hope it helps.
142 pages, ebook
First published October 9, 2015
3 people are currently reading
113 people want to read
About the author
Gerald M. Weinberg
95 books372 followersGerald Marvin Weinberg (October 27, 1933 – August 7, 2018) was an American computer scientist, author and teacher of the psychology and anthropology of computer software development.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 2, 2016
I'm biased because of what the book means to me at the moment. A great book? Probably not....but in this particular moment and under the context I need it, this book is great
Displaying 1 of 1 review