Any large and complex creative endeavor needs a design. A movie needs a script and story boards. A novel needs a theme, a premise and a plot outline. A work of art needs composition.
Producing software is no different. Good computer code isn’t just written. It’s designed. Good code needs a theme, an overall structure and a clear point and purpose, not unlike a good novel or a good movie.
So what makes code good? The lowest bar code needs to meet is that solves the problem it was written to solve. That’s like saying a movie has a plot climax. Just because we’ve cut to the chase doesn’t mean it’s a good movie. Just because the code solves the problem doesn’t mean it’s good code.
That’s where the concept of “clean code” comes in. A clean design is simple, effective and elegant. Consider the difference between one of first smart phones—now lost to the dustbin of history—and the first iPhone:
These two products did the same thing. But one of them had a more elegant design—a cleaner design—and has thus become the most popular smart phone in history, despite its greater cost.
So clean code is effective in that it solves the specified problem. It’s simple in that it’s easy to understand. It’s elegant in that all that is in the design of the code is what’s necessary, nothing less, nothing more. Kind of like the design of the iPhone. More on this here: Clean Code
I have to admit that in the last few weeks, I’ve begun to wonder if this moment in history is similar to the Visigoths having Rome under siege in preparation for sacking it. In my lifetime I have never lived through any moment like this. Any one of a pandemic, economic collapse or widespread social unrest would have indicated a disastrous year. We are experiencing all three. Is the grand experiment in democracy begun 244 years ago about to end?
It can certainly feel that way. A nation that is used to leading the world is now leading the world in infections and deaths. A country that has thought of itself as a melting pot and a gorgeous mosaic is now apparently riven, with the rift between protesters and police enforced with brutal tactics more associated with tyrannies. Points of science have now become politicized.
There is one among us who has endured far more than his fair share of the pain. John Lewis, son of a sharecropper, was regularly beaten by police as he led peaceful protests asserting the right to vote of the historically disenfranchised.
But despite all the suffering he endured at the hands of agents of the government, he did not surrender his hope in the fulfillment of the Founder’s promise. He didn’t decide to tear down the government. He joined it. He is currently serving his 17th term in Congress, representing Georgia’s 5th congressional district. He hasn’t tried to destroy the democratic system. He has been trying to fully implement it. He and others like him have been faithfully trying to complete the experiment and finally realize a government of the people, by the people and for the people—and for all the people.
This nation was born in protest against the unjust and capricious behavior of a monarch. The facts submitted to a candid world in the Declaration of Independence amount to an assertion of the right of self-determination, a desire to be ruled by a government granted consent by the people and a demand to be governed by a rule of law that recognizes the natural rights and dignity of human beings. How are these different from what the protesters are asking for today?
This darkest hour of my lifetime may yet turn out to be planting the seeds of America’s finest hour. Protests cause trouble because they upset the status quo. Protests are also an act of faith. For the protesters to believe they will succeed, they must believe in the basic decency and morality of those they are protesting against. Otherwise, why bother? If there is no expectation of compassion, there is no point to protesting. Perhaps out of the many we will finally become one. Those of us largely unaffected by what has driven our compatriots to the streets are finally listening. As John Lewis would say, protests cause good trouble. The rest of us needed to be troubled that citizens of this nation can be arbitrarily deprived not only of their right to vote, but also of their basic right to live.
If John Lewis can still believe in this grand experiment, the rest of us certainly can.
I wish you all a good Fourth of July.
“We will create the beloved community. We will redeem the soul of America. There may be some setbacks, some delays, but as a nation and as a people, we will get there. And I still believe we shall overcome.”
A black man is murdered by a white man. An entire nation convulses in fury. A leader arises who changes the course of history. This can easily describe what will happen this year and how history will remember 2020. It also happens to describe 1968 America and what happened then.
The parallel has already been drawn, notably by the Wall Street Journal and The Economist. In 1968 the murdered black man was Martin Luther King, Jr. Soon after he was assassinated protests and riots erupted all over America. The leader that arose was Richard Nixon. Using the implicitly racist and infamous “southern strategy” that preyed on racial fears, Nixon won the presidency. He would also have to resign the presidency six years later, the mire of his corruption finally drowning him.
The description above can also refer to 1993 South Africa. Chris Hani was a black South African activist who was also murdered by a racist white man. South Africa also convulsed in fury. The existing power structure could not do anything to quell the flames since their illegitimacy as a government had been so painfully revealed through years of unrest. It was only when a former prisoner addressed the country that peace was restored. Nelson Mandela had been incarcerated for twenty-seven years but had gained enormous moral power and legitimacy that only he could calm South Africa. One year after his address—the address any legitimately elected president should have been able to make—Mandela actually became President. It was a proud moment not only in South African history, uniting black and white, but also in human history.
These descriptions of the past offer starkly divergent possibilities. No matter which path the United States takes, a change is gonna come. And regardless of change you want, the only action that will bring about your preferred choice is this: vote.
There is a profound irony in wanting to have definitive and scientific evidence that I had an illness (“Who out there wants a disease?”—“ME!!”—“You got it, you win!”) but that is the kind of time we live in, the pandemic paradox. Regardless of what the WHO says, the hope is that the antibodies confer a good level of immunity. This was definitely one of the tests in my life that I did not want to fail.
But, in fact, at first, I did. Or I thought I did. I took the test on a Thursday and I received the result in my inbox Monday morning. I read the message, full of medical verbiage that I did not understand (“Captain, I’m an engineer not a doctor!”) and the only part I could make heads or tails of was this:
Component COVID-19 IGG
Your Value TNP INDEX
Standard Range <1.4 INDEX
Index (S/C) Value Interpretation < 1.4 Negative
My value was TNP INDEX! I didn’t even HAVE a value. After all that anxiety ridden suffering in March all I got was TNP INDEX? I had failed this all important test.
You can imagine what this did to my mood. I actually felt happy and light hearted in the days preceding this result. That is not how I felt after. Of all the feelings I had, the most prominent I had was confusion. If I didn’t have covid-19 in March, what caused the fever, the weakness, the pain, the cough, the loss of weight, the headaches and the other symptoms that you would rather not read about. You mean there’s another monster out there?!
Monday evening I received a follow-up message:
Component COVID-19 IGG
Your Value 6.9%
Standard Range <1.4 INDEX
And it contained these magic words from my doctor: “This indicates that you did, indeed, have covid-19”. I hit the jackpot!
I am very well aware that the WHO said in April that there is absolutely no evidence that the antibodies provide immunity from covid-19. That statement confused me when I first heard it. Why would we need evidence when it’s a principle in biology, virology and immunology that antibodies are deployed by the body to protect against specific antigens. Every high school student on earth learns this. Why wouldn’t I be immune? I asked my doctor this very question. In fact, I asked him if there are any infectious diseases that, once contracted, don’t confer protection against reinfection.
“Hepatitis-C”, he answered. To be clear, he said “C”. Not hepatitis-A or B. “C”. The dreaded C. The reason is that there is enormous genetic variability with the hepatitis-C virus. Your body can generate the antibodies for a specific version of hep-C and then you can be attacked by different genetic version. This happens to drug addicts all the time, my doctor told me. They use dirty needles, come down with hep-C, use needles again, they are infected again by a different version of hep-C. And, of course, there’s HIV—the virus that causes AIDS. A vaccine is unlikely, as well, and for largely the same reason.
Fortunately for me, it seems that SARS-COV-2 doesn’t mutate that quickly. There are only a handful of strains of SARS-COV-2 and they aren’t that genetically distinct from each other. My antibodies are likely to confer some level of immunity for some period of time.
This is fortunate for the world, as well. If antibodies don’t confer protection, there is no point in developing a vaccine, since their primary function is to force the body to generate antibodies.
What this really means for you is that you should celebrate with me. Antibody protection means that the vaccine will work and that you’ll be safe, as well—and that the world will become recognizable again and soon enough.
Amongst the most coveted things in the world right now, besides toilet paper and Tylenol, are the antibodies to the SARS-COV2 virus. So when my doctor said the test was available, I jumped at the chance to get it.
Almost two months ago I came down with…something. It was the strangest set of symptoms I’d ever experienced and believe me, I know symptoms. If I enumerated the symptoms of this..something…it would sound like the flu. The problem is that whatever that was in March didn’t attack like the flu. The difference between the flu and whatever that was is the difference between being punched hard and being punched for twelve rounds by Manny Pacquiao. And I had the mild version of that…something. What the hell was the severe version?
Of course, my doctor and the two PAs I spoke to during my illness presumed it was covid-19. What else could it be? But I had to be sure. So I went to get the test.
The problem was that I could only get the test in my doctor’s office. I live uptown. My doctor’s office is downtown, more than five miles away. How was I supposed to get down there? Even he wasn’t in the office. He was conducting all his sessions remotely for safety reasons. “Just put on a mask and gloves and take the subway,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”
Ever since I was a child, I’ve loved the subway. It represented the greatness of New York for me. It granted me freedom of movement. It took me everywhere I wanted to go. Everybody rode it. It equalized all members of society because rich or poor, you had to take the subway. And if you rode it late enough, you would have stories to tell.
Today, of course, the subway is not running 24 hours a day. For the first time in the 115 year history of the subway the City That Never Sleeps lets its subway rest from 1AM to 5AM, just so it can be disinfected. I hadn’t ridden the subway, myself, in two months, having been sheltered in place and traveling, at most, a half mile away from my apartment. That’s the longest I’ve gone without riding it in my history. And my history includes periods of extended convalescence and time away.
Okay, I was going to ride the subway all the way down and then back all the way up, but I wanted to see what my City looked like after two months of lockdown. I decided to ride the bus down to Washington Square Park.
The first surprise was that I couldn’t even get on the bus. Not at first. They don’t let you go in the normal way—through the front door— nowadays. This puts the driver at risk. The door doesn’t even open. You have to get on through the back door. And since there is nowhere to swipe your Metrocard in the back, bus rides are effectively free in New York City right now.
Not that many people are taking advantage of that discount. There was only one other person on the bus when I got on at noon. The chains and “Stay home” sign separated us from the driver.
For the four mile ride from uptown to downtown, there were—at most—three people on the bus at any one time, including me. Looking out on the street as we went down, there was, at most, one person on the block, maybe two. This is going down Fifth Avenue on a Thursday afternoon. The steps of the Met should have been teeming with tourists and other visitors. The sidewalks in front of some of the most expensive stores on earth should have had gawkers and window shoppers. There should have been traffic. None of the above were present.
The block where you find the Washington Square Arch is the same block where Will Smith’s character, Robert Neville, lived in the movie I Am Legend. In the movie Robert Neville is a military scientist and is the only known survivor of a pandemic that wiped out most of the world’s population and then turned the remaining people into hostile mutants. I couldn’t help thinking about that movie as I got off the bus.
But it was a beautiful spring day. The blue sky was littered with a few wispy clouds. There were a handful of people walking around. It was not unlike being in Europe on a Sunday, maybe Paris or Barcelona, when there are fewer people on the street because they are with their families. Except the I wasn’t in Europe and I have never seen any part of New York City like this, not even after we were attacked on 9/11. Walking around the City in the middle of pandemic made me feel like a visitor, a foreigner, a stranger—even though this was my own city, the city I’ve known since I was a child.
I found more people in the middle of the Park, sunning themselves, reading, talking with a friend, crashing a skateboard against the base of a statue. Which is to say that, except for the masks, it was hard to tell the difference between pre- and post-pause. There were nearly as many people as I would expect to find on any spring weekday and the social distancing was barely in evidence. I’m not sure what was more disturbing: the empty streets or the packed Park. Not that I don’t understand the need to bathe in the sun and be with people at a time like this. I was, after all, meandering, myself.
On the way to the subway I passed Broadway and I stood right in the middle of the Avenue, north and south. Not many souls nor many moving machines.
It was the subway I really wanted to see. I’d heard stories of what was now happening on them, some of them quite unsavory. What I found was, again, nothing. An empty and clean car. This is something I’ve never seen. Even at 3AM you would find someone on the train, especially in the Village. Of course, nowadays, the train isn’t even running at 3AM.
This is Zucotti Park, close to my final destination. At 1PM on a sunny cool spring day, you would expect to see hundreds of people filling the tables and walking around, taking their lunch. If you squint, you will see the one person I found. Everybody else is working from home. If they are lucky enough to be working.
The actual Wall Street use to be the beating heart of global capitalism. The financial institutions left decades ago save for a handful but it is still often crowded. Except for now, for the last few months and for the foreseeable future.
Finally, the Trinity Church, the tallest structure in New York for much of its early history. Behind it, One World Trade Center, the tallest structure in New York today. In this photographic juxtaposition one striking commonality emerges, between the modern and ancient: both structures are likely empty of people, save for the skeleton staff keeping the structures healthy as they patiently wait for people to return.
For my return home, I took the train all the way up. I didn’t take any pictures because this time, there were more people and I thought it would have been rude. Too bad, this was the interesting part of the journey and, in many ways, the most disturbing.
When I say there more people, I don’t mean the trains were crowded. Instead of one person, maybe there were ten. This still left ample room for social distancing. No one was within six feet of me.
I had heard that the homeless people were running rampant and creating havoc. I didn’t see that. I did see that there were more homeless people on the trains. Or it could have been that number of homeless people was the same but they were far more noticeable because the number of everyone else had fallen.
As for everyone else, well, that was the most tragic part of my day’s journey. In my youthful eyes the subway had been the great equalizer. Rich or poor, you had to ride it if you lived in New York. That is not true today. The vast majority of the people on the train were clearly the people who had no choice but to ride in order to make a living. No option to work remotely for them. That most of the people I saw were representatives of historically disenfranchised people made the sight more problematic. And by “most”, I mean that I only counted one person who was not said member.
The subway historically has blurred class distinctions. It is emphasizing them today to the point of heartbreak. Of course, you don’t need to ride the subway to see that emphasis. Just go to your supermarket. Take a good look at who is risking their lives for the sake of your dinner.
At the end of the I Am Legend Robert Neville develops a cure for the virus but at the cost of his life. He develops the cure by experimenting on one of the mutants but as he finishes, the other mutants attack his facility in order to rescue the one held in captivity for experimentation. Dr. Neville draws a vial of the mutant’s blood, hands it a young woman he had been protecting and then enables her escape by trapping himself with the attacking mutants and setting off grenade, killing the mutants and himself. Robert Neville wins the Manichean struggle by heroically sacrificing his life.
Until recently I didn’t know there was a Director’s Cut with a different ending. In this ending, no one dies. As the mutants attack Neville realizes that the reason the mutants are attacking is because they being led by the male partner of Neville’s female captive. A husband was simply trying to rescue his wife. From the mutants’ point of view, Neville is the monster, kidnapping and experimenting on their people. Neville realizes this and decides to return his captive, seeing tears stream down the eyes of the leader as his partner is returned. Neville and the mutants leave each other in peace in the end.
In this fearful time of crisis, of division and accusation, of sealed borders and unfounded conspiracy theories and of demonization of the Other, I prefer the second ending. I hope and pray that it is the second ending that we choose. I hope the vibrant City that I love doesn’t return. I hope the City that takes its place—the one we will all return to soon enough—is even more vibrant but also more equitable. I hope it is a City of Dreams for all. That kind of city doesn’t have to remain a dream. We can choose to make it happen. All we have to do is accept the basic responsibility that all human beings have to other human beings—whether we think they are different from us or not. This is my hope for how we emerge from this pandemic. I don’t want to return to the way things were. I want to be better.
When I Am Legend was released, of course, the studio decided to go with the first ending, the one that ended in death and destruction. That was the option they thought would generate more money for the film. I hope we don’t make the same choice.
