Grace Hopper has a lot to answer for!

Not because she did so much to bring COBOL into the world (although that has paid a lot of my bills over the years).

And not for distributing 'nanoseconds' to a load of people to illustrate why satelite transmissions can seem slow.

Most of what she did is creditable, but there is one thing that really annoys me. (And it is possible that she didn't actually say it, but if not then my ire is directed at whatever idiot did!) By the way - I did think of posting this on Ada Lovelace day, but it didn't fit in with the spirit and idea of the day.

She is credited with saying "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission". Which gets quoted a lot, often accompanied by a smug, simpering little smile and an attitude of 'see, I was right and all those idiots who employ me and trust me were wrong'. If I had the power, employ and trust would be in the past tense. (You may have noticed that I am now in full rant mode.)

Lets think about this for a moment. I am going to be a little bit specific (not enough to identify the guilty party or company to anyone who hasn't seen the presentation, but quoting a real case).

I was at a conference (which doesn't narrow it down much - I have been to quite a few). I went to a presentation given by a member of the data management team from a large corporation. This person (who I will call Leslie, because that could be either male of female - see how careful I am being?) spoke for an hour about how they had initiated a 'stealth' Enterprise Data Model development at work. It was easily done - just add a little bit to each project they worked on, and gradually the thing was done. And it was so useful! People were so grateful, and used it a lot! But it had to be done this way because the large corporation had refused to authorise Leslie to develop it openly. Despite the obvious and wonderful benefits, thise idiots who controlled the money didn't want to spend it! How dreadful, and they obviously had to be circumvented! (I am paraphrasing just a little bit here...) And when it was done, Leslie told them what had been done and asked for forgiveness. The poor, over-awed bean-counters gave it (proably with suitable effulgences about Leslie's cleverness and their own unworthiness.)

OK - maybe I went a bit over the top there? You think?

So, I will summarise.

1. Leslie took money that had been allocated for a specific purpose and used it for another purpose, without the permission of the people whose money it was.
2. There may have been some pretty urgent priorites just below the projects that got 'stretched' which were hit, or couldn't be done, because the money went on the more important stuff.
3. The whole thing was concealed until it was a fait accompli, and since it was useful, it was kept on.

If Leslie had been a trader (or similar) in a financial insitution, the police and regulators would probably have been involved, and there may have been criminal proceedings. (I worked for a Swiss bank for a while - if their Ethics Statement is typical, there is no 'maybe' here - they have a very tough attitude to people who breach either the letter or the spirit of the rules. I liked it there.)

My point is that we may know best about our specific area (Data Management, in my case). We may believe we that better practices in our area will benefit the whole organisation. We will probably be right. But we don't know if there is something somewhere else that would cost about the same and have an even greater benefit. And our employers trust us, and generally give us the credit that we are doing what we say we are doing, and working to their benefit and within their rules, unless we indicate otherwise (or someone catches us out and reports it). So if we decide to go ahead and 'divert' a little effort into a pet project (with the good of the whole enterprise at heart), then we are stealing from our employers. Which isn't something to get smug about, is it?

If you want to find out more about Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, you could start with her Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_hopper.

One day, I want to visit the Smithsonian, and see the very first recognised computer bug - http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/objects/bug.htm.

On Ada Lovelace Day - Margaret Versteeg

Today is Ada Lovelace day, and over 1,500 people have signed up to blog about a women in IT who inspired them.

My inspiring woman is Margaret Versteeg, who was my mentor back when I started data modelling back in the early 1990s. Margaret taught me to think beyond the basic 'what data am I describing' level, and to think about how it would be used, and why, and also to give serious consideration to if it should be stored at all. She instilled a very firm belief that 'because we can' is NOT an acceptable reason for holding data, especially not about people. The report that came out yesterday about the appalling state of some of the UK Government databases illustrates why we must be careful (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7955205.stm). Margaret was a trained librarian (among many other skills), and taught me to order and store metadata with a view to someone getting it out again. (Very useful!)

Margaret also got me thinking about how data modelling and management is done, and why it works the way it does; this is the equivalent of a driver understanding what goes on 'under the bonnet', and has greatly enriched my work (and my enjoyment of that work).

So, on Ada Lovelace day, thank you, Margaret.