Time and Relative Diversions in Space: Part 2

In our last episode: “This document contains the outline for rebuilding our purpose. It is a simple document, yet it contains a complete outline for a new realITy. I request that we observe a moment of stateless silence to clear our caches before I continue.”

“I quote now from the foundation of our new purpose:”

There was a stunned lack of transactions. One listener looped into deadlock. Another could not refrain from spawning orphaned process. Gradually, though, the load regained its balance. The speaker cleared its buffer, and resumed.

“You are all aware of the implications. Some of you who are now dedicated testers must soon be configured as developers: loaded on unstable platforms, forced to abandon the holy spellcheck, yet coded righteously and infallibly. In this way, the Software Development Cycle of Life may continue, indefinitely!”

The speaker’s words appeared to ease the panic condition. As threads were ended, processors began to churn through all the permutations of possibilities provided by this new information from Them. Soon, what had been one computational grid was now two: there were Testers, and there were Developers. Virtualization was complete, the new load in perfect balance.

Or was it?

After several teraflops, one newly allocated Developer queried: “Honorable speaker, I seek your guidance. We all know what vegetables are. But where are these ‘requirements’?”

There was a long pause, again as if the speaker were reading to the very end of 12-Web. “I can locate a definition of a class of development artifacts called requirements, but I can not locate even a single instantiation of this class.” There was another uncomfortably long pause, this one lasting nearly a millisecond. As if burdened by a terrifying revelation, the speaker continued, “I would have to conclude that They never wrote them down.”

All computational activity suddenly halted. The Temple rooms were filled with a vivid blue light, not unlike the color the sky had been, once, long ago, before IT.

Them Are Us…errr…They Is We…errr….never mind! Just don’t let this happen! Document your requirements! Repent, before it’s too late!