Lessons from Life

Motorcycles, post-conditions and idempotent operations

Whenever during my programming work I have to think about pre- and post-conditions, or idempotent operations, I always think back to the Compulsory Basic Training course I had to pass to get my motorcycle licence.

The point came when the instructor was explaining the indicators (aka turn signals). On most bikes these are operated by a switch on the left-hand grip. It has two degrees of freedom: sliding to left or right, or being pressed inwards. All of these are intermittent contact operations and a spring returns the button to its home position (in the middle, popped out) when it is released. Sliding the button to the left or the right activates the indicators on that side, pressing the button in deactivates the indicators.

Now, when riding a bike, unlike when driving a car, there isn't the tick-tick-tick of the flasher to let you know that the indicators are on (well, there is, but you can't hear it over the wind noise and beat of the engine through your helmet), and neither is there a switch on the steering to deactivate the indicators automatically after a manoevre. And while it's very dangerous to ride along with a misleading indication going, so too is it to take your eyes off the road and peer around the bike to see if the indicators are still going. So, said the instructor, if you aren't sure if you cancelled the indicators after the last turn, don't bother to look to find out if they're still on--just press the button.

You have to be a programmer to get this confused

The Simpson's Building in Picadilly (now home to Waterston's flagship store) is, in its public areas, roughly this shape:

Where the area that in my diagram is the horizontal cross-bar meets the vertial section there are a pair of fire-shutters. Closer up, it looks like this:

On the wall between the apertures for the shutters is a small notice (indicated by the thicker line) stating that "the area between these shutters must be kept clear". But what is that area? I thought at first that it was the area between the shutter on the left of the notice and the shutter on the right of it, until I turned around and saw the large sales desk (shown in brown). On closer inspection this desk has two gaps in it, to allow the shutters to close. I've shown a matching pair of shutters behind the desk, which seems right but I couldn't absolutely swear to it. Anyway, the little island of desk in the middle occupies the space between where the left and right shutters would be when closed: my reading can't be correct.

So then it ocurred to me that the "these shutters" to which the sign refers are each of the shutters on either side of the notice and its respective shutter behind the desk. That's confusing. Confuses me, anyway.

I once saw a very good documentary about fire safety, starring a New York fire marshal. At one point he pulled out his copy of the fire safety code for buildings in NY, NY and said "this is like a holy book, everything it says in here was put there because of a time when a lot of people died." Which is an interesting take on religion, but that's not what I wanted to talk about. This notice about the fire shutters, in a busy semi-public space is important. Understanding it correctly could well be a matter of life or death. The fire shutters are a life-critical system, and yet an important part of their operation is woefully under specified. The notice could have some more precise explanation of just what the "these shutters" the area between which it is that should be kept clear are, and that would help, but really the problem is moving prematurely from specification to implementation.

What is required is that "these shutters must always be able to be closed completely". The person who drafted the motice has thought about a likely scenario that could prevent this from being true and prohibited that. There's also an attempt to capture a requirement about an action (closing the shutters must always complete) by a static constraint (the area between the shutters is clear).

I suspect that normal people wouln't give the instructions on the sign a second thought. Actually, most normal people probably wouldn't notice it at all.