The term “debugging”

Where does the term “degugging” come from?

Welcome to Quote Thursdays. Is this below quote familiar to you?

“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”
~ Grace Murray Hopper

This is Admiral Grace Murray Hopper,who is described in a quote bio as “the American computer pioneer, was the first woman to become a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. She was born in 1906 in New York. By age seven, she was taking alarm clocks apart to see how they worked. She worked for the U.S. Navy developing the first compiler, which allowed people to write computer programs in real language rather than machine code. When she found a moth inside a computer, she coined the term “debugging.” She died in 1992.”

I earlier described what I mean by a quote bio here. Wikipedia backs up this history of the origin of “debugging,” although adding that in non-computer circles such as aeronautics the term had had some popularity prior to Hopper.

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* If you liked this post, you might like the thought about the Ctrl+Z button of your life.
* The above information came to me from a quote bio.

The Ctrl-Z Button

Ctrl-Z The Ctrl-Z Button changed the face of humanity.
It created a trial-and-error mentality.
It encourages try-and-see.

“I’ll format this text like so in my business cards… Oh no! Too far to the left!!!
Ctrl-Z!!!!!!!!! :) Yay!”

These all work similarly: the Ctrl-Z button, having many lives for your character in a video game, going back to a prior saved Word document. Trial and error, multiple-trial and success.

Can there be any harm in the Ctrl-Z button? Research shows that there’s not much, if any, harm. There’s some evidence that teenagers are taking more risks these days (e.g., this pdf), which some attribute to the second-chance mentality, “Sure, I might get in trouble, but I’ll get a do-over.” Restart the game. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t get a second chance. But so far, there’s no direct evidence that a trial-and-error mentality is connected to crime or harm. In fact, sociologists recently reported that video games do not cause more aggression in teens.

On the other hand, there are a ton of great things about restarting. See what Dave Seah highlights about rebooting your day. Restarting is freshness. It’s counteracting what the Made-to-Stick Heath brothers call “The Curse of Knowledge,” knowing so much about your subject that you can’t step away and be objective. If you can trigger yourself to restart your day, then maybe you can cultivate that “beginner’s mind” that Jordan Silberman writes about here and Miriam Ufberg writes about here.

I love Ctrl-Z. I love trying, going back, retrying.
The most memorable way to learn is by making mistakes. :)

Then Providence Moves Too

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have
occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in
one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material
assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

Begin it now.

This is a quote that is often attributed to Goethe. This website attributes this quote to Lord “Johnnie” Fisher – British Admiral. The Goethe Society of North America explains here the controversy and mistaken attribution to Goethe.

In any case, I love this quote. Great quote for entrepreneurship.

The Secret History of Thanksgiving

As we celebrate Thanksgiving with turkey, mashed potatoes, apple pie or pumpkin pie, and gathering family and friends, what do we remember about the origins of this tradition? We’ve heard that this tradition grew the first year when Pilgrims settled into Plymouth, Massachusetts when the Pilgrims brought together all their harvests and celebreated their bountiful foods.

The big secret is that the Pilgrins arrived in the fall of 1620, and the first year of harvest of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, 1621, was absolutely terrible, and resulted in a famine. So did the second year. And then in the third year, 1623, something dramatically changed about how the Pilgrims chose to govern themselves, and it is that that led to the bountiful first harvest, and to the gathering around and sharing the great food.

Here is the first person account by the Governor of the British colony in Plymouth at the time, William Bradford, of the years between 1600 and 1622:

* 1621, The first harvest was shared communally among all the families and was very small. Furthermore, from the time they had arrived, abundance had decreased significantly.
“They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter … every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees).”

* There had been very little supply up until 1623.
“All this while no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery.”

What was the something that changed before the harvest of 1623, the first abundant harvest? William Branford writes:

* This was the DECISION OF THE PILGRIMS in 1623:
To give each family some land to farm on their own as opposed to having communcal farming and communal land
.
“At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other thing to go on in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.”

Why did having the private land for each family result in much stronger crops than having a communal shared farming? William Bradford answers this question also with his 1620’s explanation of shirking – he claims that there is no increased happiness in communcal living and that shirking goes away when people farm for themselves as opposed to for others.

* No increased happiness from communal living.
“The experience that was had in this common course … that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.”

* Communal living had hurt everyone – young men, strong men, aged men, and women who were as slaves, says Bradford.
“For the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it.”

* In fact, and Bradford writes firmly about this point, communal living and treating all people the same actually ‘diminish[es] and take[s] off the mutual respects’ that people would naturally have towards one another.
“Upon the point all being to have alike, and all to do alike … it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them. … I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them. “

In 1623, there was a DECISION that changed everything, and it is because of that decision that we now celebrate Thanksgiving.

Lesson and Take-Away: People take incomparably better care of something that belongs to them personally than they do of communal property.

Sources:
* William Bradford: History of Plymouth Plantation, c. 1650 (exerpts, entire book in google books)
* More information about the secret history of Thanksgiving can be found here, here, here, and an account dating to 1607 with the Virginia settlement before the Plymouth settlement here.
* If you want to google and search for this real history of thanksgiving, search for the words “thanksgiving private property“.