Pummeling Ed.

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Over the last couple of years, Ed has become my hero. Why? During this time, having read his book, TB 2000, and followed his articles and posts, I've learned that he is a man of integrity and courage.

I knew that he would be hammered by some people, and severely, if the rollover would be a "non-event." How did I know this? I too have been hammered, repeatedly, for playing the Paul Revere, the pilot. There are some people who cannot see; left brain, right brain, fried brain ...

The Titanic received warnings of a humongous iceberg directly in her course. Ed Yourdon, a man of insight and foresight, controlled his emotions of dread and foreboding and did not run around the bridge screaming: "WE'RE ARE GOING TO SINK! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!," thereby inciting panic aboard.

Neither did he go into denial.

Instead, he calmly described to all those who would listen, that there might be a disaster looming ahead in the dark. He described to the captain and his officers, in elegant and rational terms, that he had learned through his research, and his personal experience, that collisions could be very painful. (Ed drove his car into a wall. Once.) Because of his accurate assessment, and eloquent description of the potential problem, the collision, and how to avoid it, the Titanic command crew wrestled, pummeled and cursed each other, and Ed, causing great confusion among the ship's souls. But by the time the two very large objects would have met, some of the crew had responded sufficiently to steer around the iceberg, almost, and therefore receiving only a few dents on the ship's side.

And saving many lives.

For his deeds, Ed was not congratulated, however, by all. Some accused him of doomerneering and profiteering. They claimed that they had made bets that they now lost, they attended parties that had been curtailed, that they had made investments that now had gone sour, that ...

There have been extremely few heroes in my life. The following statement is not an allegory; this actually happened: Last night I woke up nauseuos and crawled to the toilet on my hands and knees. I did not upchuck, began to feel better and went back to bed. As I write this, I feel tired, but I am happy because heroes have avoided the Big Collsion.

What's that on the horizon? A German torpedo? An overloaded boat of Haitian refugees?

Let's remain prepared?!?!?

Thank you heroes.

-- Not Again! (seenit@ww2.com), January 07, 2000

Answers

What TTF said :-)

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), January 07, 2000.

Thank you Not Again and thank you Ed!

Mike

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-- Mike Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), January 07, 2000.


Ummmmm, in case you haven't noticed, Ed Yourdon was wrong on just about everything. Reality is orders of magnitude better than his best case.

When is Ed going to use his vaunted analytical skills to investigate his own thinking? Even the kook Rick Cowles pulled up stakes and started cashing in on the e-commerce gravy train months ago.

    --bks

-- Bradley K. Sherman (bks@netcom.com), January 07, 2000.


Mr. Yourdan may be an decent guy with his heart in the right place, but he's no hero. The heroes were the folks who fixed it , those who encouraged folks to fix it, and those who made it easier for others to fix it, and those who urged calm.

Those who cried "It can't be fixed! Head for the hills!" were not heroes by any stretch.

-- Mike (mike@noemail.net), January 07, 2000.


left brain, right brain, ...

Thank you(,) heroes.

-- Not Again! (seenit@ww2.com), January 07, 2000.



Ya can't fault a guy for throwing himself on a grenade to save some fellow humans, even though he didn't know it was a dud!

-- Porky (Porky@in.cellblockD), January 07, 2000.

Ed - I have enjoyed all your writings and observations on what happens when computer programmer meets computer. I remember a year and a half ago you said that year 2000 should be an item on the agenda of the weekly staff meeting. It wasn't happening then, nobody wanted to think about the boring problem. A couple months later, utilities started to wake up, and it started happening. A teacher never knows how far his reach will go. I hope you do more writing in the future.

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), January 07, 2000.

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