This time around I went back to the mid-sixties in search of the very beginnings of computing in Toronto. Okay, yeah, I’ve been spending a lot of time online making sweet sweet love to the blogosphere. And programming. But the digital miracles I’m pulling out of my ass (and many of us are), these days would’ve been unimaginable forty-five years ago. In fact, even though I’m more closely familiar with most of the gizmos in these photos than the average person, even I’m at a loss to put name or function to everything there. But I’ll try.

Okay, so from my understanding, this is what computing looked like at the University of Toronto circa 1965ish:

Can you imagine what it would’ve taken to slap together a basic web page at that time? Like, look at the fellow in the photo above; picking out a frozen pizza because he knows he’s going to be a while.  It’s nice that they provided slushie machines for the programmers:

I guess he’s picking his flavour.

Oh, yeah, of course I’d be hideously remiss if I didn’t mention the sideburns. That was the requisite look in those days, from my understanding. For when you’d fall asleep on your desk on account of the speed of the computers. Sop up your drool ‘n all. (I know, gross, but hey, practical.)

So here’s Mr. Burns actually earning a living:

That’s pretty much all programming was back then. Flip a switch, twirl a knob, push a button. Then wait two hours for it to confirm that, yes, 3 x 3 is indeed 9.

But it was the cutting edge and we wouldn’t be here today without it. Even though today’s digital technology wasn’t the intended outcome, if I’ve read my history books right. Most of this binary horsepower went to work for James Bondesque villains planning to do something sinister to Toronto. Typically represented by a blonde-haired German “Number Two” in the lower echelons of the organization:

So what happened? Simple. Women happened:

You can’t run an evil empire when your henchmen and underlings are distracted by a pair ‘a gorgeous gams. So academia was left with all the slushie machines and frozen pizza pies and decades later we have cell phones that can multiply three by three pretty fast. Neat.

What a marvelous age we live in. Sure it has its problems, but I have a whole photo studio and a world-wide broadcast radio to take along with me into the toilets. When in the past could we ever do that?

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I’ve signed on the dotted line and am now the proud new Senior Flash Developer at Henderson Bas, a downtown ad agency with a bunch of famous clients and awards coming out the wazoo. I normally wouldn’t mention their name but, being so out there, I don’t think they’re averse to being discussed. I’ll just have to refrain from talking too much smack.

The contract was a gargantuan tome, one of the largest volumes I’d ever encountered. A whole adult tree made up just the non-disclosure agreement alone, the rest had to be delivered by freight train. So it’s pretty thorough. I’m fairly certain I’ll have to relinquish my spleen upon termination, but that’s a pretty standard clause. Otherwise, I’ll be slapping stuff together for HB come Monday; incidentally also my birthday (I know, right?)

In the same way that I won’t talk smack about HB, I’m not going to go into the gruesome details of why I left my current position. Let’s just say that there were some … issues.

That’s my former desk in the middle there, between the windows. I needed to lose major poundage just to be able to get into my seat. On the plus side, my ass has never been leaner. But the alarmingly cramped quarters, even when compared against the double-wide spaces all around, weren’t part of the issue. Neither was the scorching radiator at my back (intermittently overpowered by the winter wind coming in through the ancient windows). Even the fact that the only safe place in a fire would be outside the building didn’t really bother me.

The issues that I mentioned, I suppose, are ones you could encounter at any workplace. Just considerably more acute here. Nothing cute about them either. I think it’s best to leave it at that.

I haven’t seen my spot at HB yet, but if the parts of the office I saw during my interviews are any indication, I may be able to gain a few pounds back. And possibly even take Ollie with me on occasion (they seem quite pet-friendly there). Then again, tromping around downtown with a cat on a leash might not work out that well. Not for Ollie. Not for my heterosexuality.

Similar to the office above, HB is situated in an older brick building, but the decor has infinitely more personality. It’d be great if I could do a couple of posts from the inside, but maybe I’m just getting a bit ahead of myself. Guess I’m just happy. What an odd feeling.

The location shaves about half an hour off my walk and puts me just south of Chinatown, meaning my regained pounds may come from all manner of dim sum, greasy roast duck, and “special tea” (after-hours beer). It’s also close to a section of King Street West where a number of fancy restaurants live; ones that “I’ll totally eat at this summer” and know full well I won’t. But it’s nice to know the option’s there.

I won’t bore you with the techie details of what I’m going to be doing at HB; I’ve come to realize that broaching the subject causes instantaneous brain haemorrhages in anyone within earshot (or eyeshot, in this case). But luckily there’s a whole whack of programming lingo that sounds even more entertaining if you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about:

• When a child throws something, the parent must catch it at some point. Otherwise the object that was thrown just gets tossed on the heap and is eventually discarded.
• When a parent is destroyed, the children are often destroyed too. This is usually accomplished by making them null (or void).
• One of the most dangerous things a developer can do is to create an orphaned child. This is a child with no parent, though it can still have siblings.
• Once orphaned, a child can go rogue and start to consume all the resources. To prevent it from crashing, it must be killed. If that doesn’t work, we go after the process that spawned it.
• It’s possible to create clones, but all the variables involved make it a complex procedure (“method” in modern terminology). It’s better to work from prototypes and simply inherit attributes.
• A class typically has members; some public, some private. The members should follow strict naming rules and be cast as specific types. However, for things to run smoothly, classes should eventually be completely removed from memory.
• Before a class can be created, it needs to have a package. It’s perfectly okay to use an empty package.
• Clean instructions go a long way to preventing bugs. If bugs are found, however, they should be tracked.
• Modern strings can be of any length, but all strings are terminated at some point.
• Addresses are usually accessed with the help of operators. Sometimes pointers. Other times you need references.
• The garbage collector plays a big role in keeping things tidy, but it does its own thing in its own time. It’s the garbage collector that’s most often implicated in orphaning children.

And these aren’t even taken out of context – they actually mean something. When you repeat them to a software developer, you should get a knowing nod in return. How you choose to explain that you have no idea what you’ve just said is entirely up to you.

Now if you’ll excuse me, dear reader, I’m going to get some shut-eye. It took me hours to rid the work PC of all the porn and I got home very late. However, I get a few of days before my “trial by fire” begins (HB’s words), so I’m going to try to put my noggin into neutral. Sleep should come easy tonight.

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I did resist for so long, but I finally feel like I need to mention … the day job.

Okay, I need to bitch.

Are you groaning already? See, that’s why I resisted. I know how you feel about people whining about their jobs, and I totally get it. I mean, there are plenty of people who would love a job, and there’s plenty else to blog about, right?

You couldn’t be more correct in agreeing with me. But  I figure TCL can accommodate everything Toronto-related for at least one post. And I work in Toronto, so it qualifies.

Besides, my intention is to make this as painless, boringless, and whiningless as humanly possible. No names, of course, and I don’t claim that any of this is true. But I think inspired would be a good way to put it. Very inspired.

The People

Manager: My immediate manager (plus a few other people’s, including the art team’s).

MANAGER: Manager’s immediate manager.

Art team: The people who produce the designs and artwork for the software.

IT: The people who manage all the computer hardware and software that we use.

The Words

Bug: Any problem with a piece of software. Could be as small as the wrong colour on a button, or as big as your computer bursting into flames.

Bug ticket: GODDAM COCKSUCKING MOTHER OF A WHORE!! (A notification, usually by email, that the testers found a bug in the software we’ve written).

Code: The instructions (written by us) that make up the brains of the software. If we’re feeling fancy, we call it “source code”. But code sounds cooler.

Build: When all the code, art, etc. get collected and mushed together to produce the final software product.

Specification: A long and boring document that describes, in detail, what the software should do, how it should do it, how it should look while it’s doing it, and so on. At least, that’s what we hope for.

Server: A computer that sits on a network and “serves” data to any other computers that request it. That data could be a web page, Twitter feed, or hardcore pornography. Computers are awesome!

To: MANAGER@employer.com
From: patrick@employer.com
Subject: Requested time allotment report for Tuesday
Sent: Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Time Allotment

10:00 – 10:30: Searching for Manager to discuss bug. After questioning, art team revealed that he is home sick today.

10:30 – 10:45: Had to do some research to retrieve Manager’s unlisted telephone number. The one he recorded for our records is our own office number (we should probably update that).

10:45 – 11:00: Telephone call with Manager to discuss bug. Manager maintained that it was “impossible” for it to be his code so I re-assigned bug ticket to myself for investigation.

11:00 – 13:00: Ran verifications and concluded that the bug must be addressed in Manager’s code.

13:30 – 13:35: Telephone call with Manager who confirmed that, “of course”, the bug was something he needed to fix.

13:35 – 13:40: Emailed response to build team’s complaint regarding errors in our builds. I reminded them that we can’t prepare our code for a build if they don’t tell us they want to do one. We have not as yet been able to develop psychic abilities.

13:49 – 14:00: Discussion with you regarding project X:
Project to be completed by this Friday or next Monday for release in the afternoon, same day. Art team will produce graphics on Thursday and  the specification will be ready by Friday morning. Testing to begin next Tuesday with a round of bug fixes scheduled for next Wednesday. Scheduling discrepancies will be dealt with later. This is to be exclusively top-priority until finished.

14:00 – 14:30: Your team meeting request to discuss why the schedule wasn’t being met. Team agreed that closer attention needed to be paid to scheduling.

14:30 – 14:45: At your request, sat with your assistant to update the schedule with accurate dates and times for current projects.

14:45 – 14:50: Emailed IT explaining why I needed a license for the Adobe Flash development software (specified that I am an Adobe Flash developer). The software lock currently in place on my copy of the expired software is preventing me from effectively doing my job.

14:50 – 14:55: Emailed IT again explaining why my current software was, as yet, unlicensed. I included copies of the six unfulfilled software requisition forms I submitted during my first six months of employment.

14:55 – 15:00: Discussed with you why I required a software license for the Adobe Flash software.

16:00 – 16:05: Larry asked, on your behalf, for a detailed estimate on development time for project X.

16:05 – 16:10: Wong asked, on your behalf, for a detailed estimate on development time for project X.

16:10 – 16:15: Vergil asked, on your behalf, for a detailed estimate on development time for project X.

16:15 – 16:20: You requested an estimate on development time for project X.

16:20 – 16:50: Took lunch.

16:50 – 17:00: Worked on project X.

17:00 – 17:10: Meeting to re-assign priorities. I should now focus all my efforts on project Y.

17:10 – 17:15: Vergil asked, on your behalf, for a detailed status report on the progress of project X.

17:15 – 17:20: Emailed IT to request more disk space on our only development server. Explained that it was the only way to test our software. Request was denied, but I would like to point out that I am willing to purchase an 8 Gigabyte memory stick ($20), out of pocket, to effectively quadruple our storage capacity. Please advise.

17:20 – 17:40: Deleted and compressed data on the development server to clear up some space.

17:40 – 17:50: Sat with your assistant to re-input the schedule from this morning. I’d like to suggest that only one person be responsible for updating the schedule to preventing this type of data loss in the future.

17:50 – 18:00: Produced this time allotment report to identify some of the inefficiencies in our system.

Thanks for humouring me. I feel … lighter.

Should I find myself suddenly unemployed for some reason, I’ll even be able to reveal how much of that is actual, unembellished truth. The number shocks even me.

And as a special favour to you, I will abstain from boring you to tears again for at least a week.

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The new Netbook I purchased yesterday has been inaugurally dropped, shaken like a wailing toddler by a coworker, and still appears to be running. I can’t adequately express the excited shivers I feel running up my spine as I write this in the thick of it: on the streetcar! Must be why they call it the Eee PC.

Or maybe it’s just the caffeine. There’s not really much going on; streetcar’s a bit off schedule. Hum.

Actually, I got this funny little conpooter because my gargantuan laptop; well, she’s about to die. She can’t boot sometimes and that horrible, horrible clicking sound coming from somewhere in that portly package, that usually signals imminent death. *sob*

I could almost survive without the teevee (which is one of Bertha’s — that’s the computer — functions), but not having TCL, that would have been too much. So I bit the pillow and shelled out a few hundred for this little wonder of a gizmo. If only my fingers weren’t so big-boned. The keyboard’s in the lowest order  of  comfortable typing surfaces, but it should do until I scrape enough money together to purchase a beefier machine. Or at least something that’ll let me play Tomb Raider comfortably.

For $350 bucks I got a 1.9 gigahertz processor, a gigabyte of RAM, a 160 gigabyte hard drive, and the soothing knowledge that when Bertha finally kicks it, I’ll at least have something to fall back on. If those specs don’t mean anything to you, trust me, it’s a good price.

My shopping prowess aside, such good deals can be had commonly in a little section of College Street between Bathurst and Spadina that I’ve taken to calling Computer Alley. It’s not really an alley, but doesn’t it make it sound somehow more intriguing?

On this short strip you will find an unusually high density of computer stores, many of them operating directly beside each other, and many staffed by Indian, Sri Lankan, or Pakistani men, which always implies good bargains (you know it’s true). Sometimes the price cuts are so deep, it’s a hemorrhagic wonderland of bargains. Even if you only have twenty bucks burning a hole in your pocket, you’ll find a nifty gadget to spend it on. For the gentlemen, besides computer hardware there are plenty of wierd and useless digital devices that will help to demonstrate the superior size of your penis to the ladies. Ladies, some of these things are *sooooo* cute. There; all bases covered.

The really great thing about strolling down Computer Alley is the number of licensed establishments interjected between these hardware shops; liquor, money, and digital hardware is a fun afternoon for everyone, especially the kids. You might even spot me there inebriatedly trying to squeeze some bargains out of the hapless shopkeeps. Then again, with no photo of me, that may prove to be somewhat challenging. How about this? I’ll be the guy schlepping the Asus around.