TITLE: Reality versus Simulation
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: November 09, 2009  9:54 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
A recent discussion on the XP mailing list discussed
the relative merits of using physical cards for story
planning versus a program, even something as simple
as a spreadsheet.  Someone had asked, "why not use
a program?", and lots of XP aficionados explained
why not.

I mostly agree with the explanations, but one
undercurrent in the discussion bothered me.  It is
best captured in this comment:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
The software packages are simulations.  The board
and cards are the real thing.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

I was immediately transported twenty years back, to
a set of old arguments against artificial intelligence.
They went something like this...  If we write a
program to simulate a rainstorm, we will not get wet;
it is just a simulation.  By the same token, we can
write a program to simulate symbol processing the way
we think people do it, but it's not real symbol
processing; it is just a simulation.  We can write a
program to simulate human thought, but it's not real;
it's just simulated thought.  Just as a simulated
rainstorm will not make us wet, simulated thought
can't enlighten us.  Only human thought is real.

That always raised my hackles.  I understand the
difference between a physical phenomenon like rain
and a simulation of it.  But symbol processing and
thought are something different.  They are physical
in our brains, but they manifest themselves in our
interactions with the exterior world, including other
symbol processors and thinkers.  Turing's insight in
his seminal paper
<A HREF="http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html">
   Computing Machinery and Intelligence</A>
was to separate the physical instantiation of intelligent
behavior from the behavior itself.  The essence of the
behavior is its ability to communicate ideas to other
agents.  If a program can carry on such communication
in a way indistinguishable form how humans communicate,
then on what grounds are we to say that the simulation
is any less real than the real thing?

That seems like a long way to go back for a connection,
but when I read the above remark, from someone whose
work I greatly respect, it, too, raised my hackles.
Why would a software tool that supports an XP practice
be "only" a simulation and current practice be the real
thing?

The same person prefaced his conclusion above with
this, which explains the reasoning behind it:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Every software package out there has to "simulate" some
definite subset of these opportunities, and the more of
them the package chooses to support the more complex to
learn and operate it becomes.  Whereas with a physical
board and cards, the opportunities to represent useful
information are just there, they don't need to be
simulated.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

The current way of doing things -- index cards and
post-it notes on pegboards -- is a medium of expression.
It is an old medium, familiar, comfortable, and well
understood, but a medium nonetheless.  So is a piece
of software.  Maybe we can't express as much in our
program, or maybe it's not as convenient to say what
we want to say.  This disadvantage is about what we
can say or say easily.  It's not about reality.

The same person has the right idea elsewhere in his
post:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Physical boards and cards afford a much larger world
of opportunities for representing information about
the work as it is getting done.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ah...  The physical medium fits better into how we
work.  It gives us the ability to easily represent
information as the work is being done.  This is about
work flow, not reality.

Another poster gets it right, too:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
It may seem counterintuitive for those of us who
work with technology, but the physical cards and
boards are simply more powerful, more expressive,
and more useful than electronic storage.  Maybe
because it's not about storage but communication.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

The physical medium is more expressive, which makes
it more powerful.  More power combined with greater
convenience makes the physical medium more useful.
This conclusion is about communication.  It doesn't
make the software tool less real, only less useful
or effective.

You will find that communication is often the bottom
line when we are talking about software development.
The agile approaches emphasize communication and so
occasionally reach what seems to be a counterintuitive
result for a technical profession.

I agree with the XP posters about the use of physical
cards and big, visible boards for displaying them.
This physical medium encourages and enhances human
communication in a way that most software does not
-- at least for now.  Perhaps we could create better
software tools to support our work?  Maybe computer
systems will evolve to the point that a live display
board will dynamically display our stories, tasks,
and status in a way that meshes as nicely with human
workflow and teamwork as physical displays do now.
Indeed, this is probably possible now, though not
as inexpensively or as conveniently as stash of index
cards, a cheap box of push pins, and some cork board.

I am open to a new possibility.  Framing the issue
as one of reality versus simulation seems to imply
that it's not possible.  I think that perspective
limits us more than it helps us.
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