How To Complete A Task

by Dennis Kuntz

This post was inspired, with tongue firmly in cheek, by several events/items/folks: a sleepless night (of which I have all too many); a Twitter conversation with über-catalyst Michael Santarcangelo; one of the greatest books ever written, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter (specifically the Little Harmonic Labyrinth – reading it will give you context –  but also the book in general); and the concept of a Wiki.

W.I.K.I. Entry – How To Complete A Task

Henry is going to “complete” a single, specific, discrete task. Completion, however, is loosely defined here as either meeting the task’s end, or merely making any progress on the specific task in question. He is accompanied by his friend Bob.

Henry: Bob, I feel so energized – I’m focused and enthused! I have no meetings. The office is quiet. Not only that, but I have a very specific task that I’d like to work on. I don’t even have to get it done (although that would be great) – I just have to start it and make any kind of progress on it and the day will be a success! What could possibly go wrong?!

Bob: Henry, I really think you shouldn’t say things like that.

Henry: Like what? That I’m excited? What’s wro-

Bob: No, I mean things like, “What could possibly go wrong?” It just gives me a bad feeling.

Henry: Um, ok. Well anyway, today I’m going to begin to step through the awesome “DFRWS Challenge Walk Through” from the winning submission to the challenge by Michael I. Cohen, David J. Collett, and Aaron Walters. That’s it! Nothing else needs to be done! I’ve downloaded the challenge files. Now, all I have to do is install pyflag and I’m ready to go!

Bob: Oh noez – this is what I was afraid of….

Henry: No problem. I already have the latest version of Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex). I’ll just do a quick apt-get install and…[types "sudo apt-get install pyflag". The computer responds with "Couldn't find package 'pyflag'"]. Hrmm, that’s interesting. It couldn’t find the package. That’s ok, I’ll just consult the W.I.K.I.

Bob: I thought it was “wiki” – as in a Hawaiian word meaning “fast”?

Henry: Well that’s one thing to consult. I prefer the W.I.K.I – it stands for W.I.K.I Increases Knowledge Incrementally.

Bob: Hrmm. Incremental things can lead very subtly to the infinite – especially when the increments – or the acronyms – involved are recursive. Recall Zeno’s paradox….

Henry: You’re a worrywart. [Opens the W.I.K.I. entry for 'apt-get "Couldn't find package" error' and starts reading]

Henry: Hey Bob, when one gets this error, they should first consult their list of repositories to make sure they have any/all of the appropriate ones.

Bob: Sounds like a good idea Henry!

Henry: Interesting. The W.I.K.I. entry has characters in it named after us, and the entry is in dialogue form. Probably to give a good example of a real person performing the tasks!

Bob: That is indeed interesting. Read on!

Henry: Ok, the repositories are fine. I guess I’ll consult the W.I.K.I. to see what to do next.

Bob: W.I.K.I’s are great! Maybe that last ‘I’ should stand for “Infinite” because they’re so vastly useful for when things go wrong!

Bob: Hey – they’re looking at a W.I.K.I. too. So I guess that makes it a meta-W.I.K.I.!

Henry: Actually, a meta-W.I.K.I. should be a W.I.K.I. about W.I.K.I.’s. I read a blog post once about an author who asked for indulgence in certain definitions for the sake of his post.

Bob: What’s a blog post?

Henry: Never mind. Let’s continue reading….

[Henry reads the entry on what to do when apt-get repositories entries are not available for a given app]

Henry: I need to download and compile the source for this app. That sounds easy enough!

Bob: Something tells me it may not be….

Henry: Ok, here it goes! [Henry proceeds to download the source for his app] Now I run ‘configure‘, ‘make‘, and then ‘sudo make install‘. Oh wait, there’s an error for some missing libraries.

Bob: You should consult the-

Henry: -W.I.K.I. Yes, I will…

*

*

*

*

*

..{W.I.K.I. entry}

*

*

*

*

*

Henry: Whew! Boy, that seemed like an infinite list of issues to overcome just to get that compiled! But at least it’s done!

Bob: Yes. I think we need to celebrate with some pizza!

Henry: Indeed!

Henry: Well that was all very useful. However I seem to have forgotten why we were looking this up in the W.I.K.I. in the first place. Oh well, let’s just call it a day and play World of Warcraft.

Bob: Sounds like a plan!