In shocking news this morning, johnnyb was fired from his job for being irrelevant. When asked about why he was fired, ABC Co. gave the following response — “We looked at the operation of the company, and, while there were many programs attributed to him, and some people claimed that the network worked because of him, we ultimately decided that philosophically, these were all johnnyb-of-the-gaps arguments. In each case, someone from management was able to conceive of a way that these systems would be functional without a johnnyb.”
Another member of management went on to say, “yeah, there are a few spots where we don’t know the details of what happened. For example, at 8:03 AM, the network was down, and at 8:45 it was back up with a replaced switch and several systems rebooted. Now, we have observed systems self-rebooting all the time (after all, we run Windows). Therefore, we know that we need not suppose a johnnyb in order for the necessary systems to be rebooted. That means that all that’s left to account for is the new switch. As with every johnnyb-of-the-gaps argument, as you look into the situation, the gap just gets smaller. Previously we could not account for either the rebooting or the new system, now it is only the new system we can’t account for by naturalistic means.”
However, some other employees had other ideas. “I know he is responsible for programming many of our core systems. I even have in my hand an install disk for one of our core systems, which was made by johnnyb. I know of no other way in which software develops except by a programmer.”
It would seem to some that having such a complex coding would require a programmer, but the CEO of ABC Co. had this to say about it: “We have a number of InstallShield-installed software components which we know were not made by johnnyb. Yet they all exhibit surprising amounts of code sequence homology. In fact, in many of the experiments we’ve been doing, we find that when we copy a CD, on occasion one or two of the bits go bad. With the amazing homology between some portions of this software, it is perfectly conceivable that our core software systems were writable by copying our old software revisions several times.” When asked about the improbability of that happening, the CEO said, “well, you just have to conceive of each change being slightly beneficial. If the change was deleterious, we would have just thrown the CD away and never used it again. However, as long as each modification was slightly beneficial, it could conceivably be done. Those who think it requires a johnnyb are simply being overtaken as new knowledge comes in. The idea that there is some gap in knowledge requiring a johnnyb just means you aren’t being scientific about it.”
Some coworkers claim to have observed johnnyb typing. “Yes, I saw him code Widget 2.3 personally. I saw him sitting there, typing on the keys. Without johnnyb, we would not have Widget 2.3.” This would appear to be a fairly convincing argument in favor of a johnnyb. But it turns out weaker than expected. “We set up a camera and numerous physical measuring devices. While he was programming, we did not detect anything that could not be explained in principle from physics and chemistry. In fact, most of the processes observed — moving fingers, looking at a screen, making grumbly noises, are equally accomplishable by any 3-year-old. There is no reason to suppose that a johnnyb was required for any of this.”
One coworker of johnnyb’s was particularly impressed with johnnyb’s work. “His newest tool is amazing. When you install it, it detects how much memory and disk space you have, and modifies it’s operation to work with the resources available. It can also auto-detect useful plugins and use them without the user having to manually configure them.”
The CEO of ABC Co. responded that “this just goes to show the great lengths some people will go to in order to prop up a failing argument. Here you have software that is clearly adaptable. When your software can adapt like this, why do we suppose it requires a designer to get any software? If the software can adapt to changing memory requirements, it’s not a very big stretch to think that it could also adapt to run on OSX or Linux given enough time. Likewise, there’s no reason, given an appropriately selective advantage, that it could not one day become a Word Processor. Obviously we don’t see these thing presently being made because the timescales are so small. People have trouble thinking in timescales this large, that’s why they don’t buy the argument.”
Finally, another manager said, “Every time someone makes a johnnyb-of-the-gaps argument, we know that they are just doing that because they are friends of johnnyb. The ‘gap’, if it could be called that, gets narrower with every new piece of information we have.”
Following shortly after johnnyb’s firing was the firing of Gerald, a middle manager who had relayed a message to a management meeting from another staff member suggesting that johnnyb might in fact be required for some software events. “Gerald was immediately fired. You can’t be a middle-manager if you suppose that programmers might in fact be programming. Unless you believe, like we do, that software comes from nothing and that programmers are just a useless budget item, you are simply a gullible fool. I mean, it’s okay if some of our middle-managers keep programmers on the payroll. It’s a long-standing tradition, and I understand the sentimental nature of the thing. It’s just that if you assume that they have intervened on the network or the computers, well, we know the road that can take us down. It’s anti-computing.”
[note to friends — in real life, johnnyb remains gainfully employed]