The Codeless Code: Case 217 The Chimera's Egg
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After seven straight days of bone-chilling rains, soggy
rice cakes and dripping tents, master Suku’s three
apprentices could no longer remember what it felt like to be
dry or warm. So one can scarcely imagine their joy when Suku
negotiated lodgings at the house of a great livestock
merchant. The merchant’s fire pits were kept burning at all
hours, his larder was stocked with roasted meat and game,
and he had no objections to the four travellers staying
through the winter if they desired.
“My only fee,” said the merchant, “is that you assess the
hermitage that maintains my site. Every feature I request
takes longer than I expect, and the site is riddled with
bugs.”
“First Apprentice!” said the master to the eldest of her
three companions. “Investigate those monks.”
“Where is this hermitage?” asked the First Apprentice.
The livestock merchant pointed out into the rain, to a
cluster of buildings atop a distant hill.
Soaked from head to toe again, Suku’s First Apprentice came
at last to the hermitage. He was welcomed by the head monk
with a cup of hot wine and the WiFi password.
“Here is one problem,” sniffled the First Apprentice as he
browsed their repository. “Your ‘Find Animals’ page is
astonishingly complex. Depending on the inputs given, it
might query for animals available for purchase, animals the
user has already purchased, animals in the wish-lists of the
user’s friends, and so on. In each case, the validations
done, the tables queried, the columns returned, and the
information displayed are completely different. The result
is an incoherent mess.”
“Indeed,” agreed the head monk. “The code has grown so
convoluted that none of us will touch it sober, and so
fragile that we dare not even add trailing whitespace to a
comment.
“Then why not implement several simple screens, instead of
one unfathomable one?” demanded the apprentice.
“You will have to ask the interface designer,” said the head
monk. “For we were told to follow her mockups exactly.”
“Where may this designer be found?” asked the First
Apprentice.
The head monk pointed out into the rain, to a small hut atop
a distant crag.
Sodden from head to toe once more, Suku’s First Apprentice
came to the interface designer’s hut. There he was given
clean robes made from recycled conference tote bags, while
his muddy clothing was washed and dyed a more trendy shade
of crimson.
“At first the ‘Find Animals’ page was simple,” said the
designer. “It was used for exactly one type of search, with
one type of result to display. Yet whenever a need arose
which involved searching for animals, I was ordered to shove
the capability into the ‘Find Animals’ page.”
“Ordered by whom?” asked the First Apprentice, punctuating
his question with a sneeze.
The interface designer pointed out into the rain, to the
distant valley where the merchant’s house lay.
Sneezing violently and leaving a trail of crimson dye (which
had not had adequate time to set), Suku’s First Apprentice
staggered through the gates of the merchant’s house and
collapsed in front of fire pit where his fellows were
playing mājan with their host.
Weakly, the First Apprentice asked the merchant if he had
truly insisted that all searching for animals be done
through exactly one screen.
“Indeed,” said the merchant with a proud nod. “I did so to
make things easier on the developers. For obviously one
screen is simpler to implement than several.”
