As a person with many hobbies I often find myself trying to take a situation I am not familiar with and compare it to something I do know. Analogizing the unknown to something that is known seems to make the unknown more palattable.
This came into practice heavily over the weekend as I spent 6 hours with friends deconstructing the front end of my track car. I have indeed done work to it before; but, this is the most major thing I have ever done. Anyway, as we worked along removing part and pieces, and disconnected, and removed, tagged and bagged pieces after piece I realized automotive is not dissimilar to software systems. Then a couple days later having a conversation with the same friend (while somewhat intoxicated) the topic that everything, when boiled down, is input, mutate, output.
Software:
input: data of W format w/ X points
mulate: application code changes date
output: data of Y format w/ Z points
Automotive
input: fuel, oxygen, spark
mutate: atomization of the mixture
output linear force upon the piston head creating motion
I endeavour to find situations / activities / systems that do not conform to the input/mutate/output process w/o ~really~ stretching the concept or loose the spirit of the application.
Bonus: Picture time
