TITLE: Magic Books and Connections to Software
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: November 07, 2007  8:02 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
Lest you all think I have strayed so far from software and
computer science with
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-11.html#e2007-11-07T07_45_15.htm">
   my last note</A>
that I've fallen off the appropriate path for this blog,
let me reassure you.  I have not.  But there is even a
connection between my last post and the world of software,
though it is sideways.

Richard Bach, the writer whom I quoted last time, is best
known for his bestselling <EM>Jonathan Livingston Seagull</EM>.
I read a lot of his stuff back in high school and college.
It is breezy pop philosophy wrapped around thin plots, which
offers some deep truths that one finds in Hinduism and other
Eastern philosophies.  I enjoyed his books, including his
more straightforward books on flying small planes.

But one of Richard Bach's sons is
<A HREF="http://www.satisfice.com/blog/">
   James</A>,
a software tester with whose work I came into contact via
<A HREF="http://www.exampler.com/blog/">
   Brian Marick</A>'s.
James is a good writer, and I enjoy both his blog and his
other writings about software, development methods, and
testing.  Another of Richard Bach's son,
<A HREF="http://www.perftestplus.com/friends.htm#JonB">
   Jon</A>,
is also a software guy, though I don't know about his work.
I think that James and Jon have published together.

<EM>Illusions</EM> offers a book nested inside another book
-- a magic book, no less.  All we see of it are the snippets
that our protagonist needs to read each moment he opens it.
One of the snippets from this book-within-a-book might be
saying something important about an
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-03.html#e2005-03-14T14_47_54.htm">
   ongoing theme</A>
here:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you
in its hands.  You seek problems because you need their gifts.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Here is the magic page that grabbed me most as I thumbed
through the book again this morning:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published
around the world -- even if what is published is not true.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Now <EM>that</EM> is detachment.

How about one last connection?  This one is not to software.
It is an unexpected connection I discovered between Bach's
work and my life after I moved to Iowa.  The title character
in Bach's most famous book was named for a real person, John
Livingston, a
<A HREF="http://desmoinesregister.com/extras/flight/pioneers/livingston.html">
   world-famous pilot</A>
circa 1930.  He was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa, my adopted
hometown, and once even taught flying at my university, back
when it was a teachers' college.  The terminal of the
<A HREF="http://www.flyalo.com/">
   local airport</A>,
which he once managed, is named for Livingston.  I have spent
many minutes waiting to catch a plane there, browsing pictures
and memorabilia from his career.
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