Africa, Atheism, and Theism

Frankly, this is amazing. That is the Gospel at work.

On The Gantt Chart, Clients, and the Stuff in Between

There are some really insightful points over at CodeSqueeze. Though, the starting point is agreed on by managers in the know – Gantt Charts lie. Lies are not useful.

To reduce the number of lies and unknowns you have to gather data. Find out what you don’t know, and then know it. This is hard when everyone is trying to save face, and show that they know everything there is to know. As a client facing person you have to first find out about the ‘domain’, what the project needs to do. This is vastly different from what the client wants the project to do. Descrepancies between these two ideas are what causes the most problems in a software development cycle. Software solves problems, it doesn’t do tasks. Find out the problems you need to solve. This is why Gantt charts are not useful, they only know tasks, not problems.

The most common objection is pointed out by Max:

We don’t want to waste time or money on a client or project we don’t know if we have yet. Let’s just figure out how much it is going to cost so we can give them a bid and we will figure out the rest later.

Do I even have to go into depth why this is stupid and counter intuitive? How can we even be remotely close in our estimations if we have no context of what we are building. We obviously are slow learners because numbers still fly out of our mouths when given an elevator pitch’s worth of information.

The real problem here is a problem of perception, perception of what a project really is. A project is not a clients wish list. A project is not a vague idea. A project is a solvable problem that will save or make the client money (and time is money, remember). A vague idea is not solvable, nor is a wish list. If the client is convinced they have a problem that costs them money, or a problem they can solve and therefore make money – they should be equally convinced to do real discovery. But, if projects are seen as things they can do, or not do, depending on the day of the week, which side of the bed they woke up on, or how much it costs (problems are recurring, cost is a one-time thing) then of course you’re not going to waste time and money doing discovery. Just give me a number and I’ll tell you go, or no go. Usually by then the client is checked out and unable to actually tell you something about the project.

On to the other side of the coin. As a developer, it is hard to pin down the difference between large and small time blocks:

Sure we can accurately estimate the difference between a 1 hour task and a 2 hour task, but can we really estimate the difference between a 23 hour and a 24 hour task? No, not in the least.

As Spolsky points out, you have to break down problems into small tasks. Of course that is impossible if the first part is not done right. If you don’t know what you’re solving, you don’t know how to find a solution. It is hard to break down dogmatic tasks into usable pieces. It is hard to break down a fake-problem, or a problem constructed right on the spot (which doesn’t match reality) into smaller, solvable problems.

Our job cannot be imagined as a factory. Work and progress is not made linearly. It is made in chunks. It doesn’t always go in, what seems from the outside to be, a logical pattern. And hopefully, your job as a programmer requires creativity. Programmers are responsible for the coding, and that includes the scheduling as well. Management shouldn’t be allowed to dictate which parts are logically before and after something. Progress is usually visible only near the end, much like an iceberg. You start with the entire project, the entire solution visually solved. If its a web-app, then you have HTML and CSS. If it is a desktop app, you have all your windows, menus, and pull-downs arranged. That is the agreed upon solution. (This doesn’t mean, of course, that these things can’t change, solutions to problems change as the problems are better understood. Which is the whole point of this article. To commit to a deadline and price without understanding anything is like playing Russian roulette. You might kill youself, your developers, or your client. They each get a turn with the gun). To continue with the iceberg, only near the end does it look like anything has been done at all. That is distinctly different than a factory where incremental changes are made piece by piece until something is completed.

Now, how to compliment managements desires with the realities of software development? That really means, how to schedule a project so 1) the client gets it by their deadline, 2) the developers don’t kill themselves, and 3) everyone likes each other when it is all said and done. Until I’m convinced otherwise, I think scheduling can only be done to satisfy all those criteria in one way: the Spolsky Monte Carlo method. I’ve whipped up one of these and applied it to our time sheets. And I’ve noticed that it fails to deliver in certain circumstances.

If the sample size is too small, the results aren’t that informative. If you have less than one hundred tasks, you’re going to have to duplicate some time entries to get to a hundred. You want to be taking a subset of the time entries, as Joel argues. But, if you do not have a large sample size, taking a subset will give you wildly erratic data. If the tasks are wildly divergent the results aren’t that informative either. This also results in wildly erratic data. If you’ve got a lot of one hour tasks that are finished in fifteen minutes, and fifteen hour tasks finished in thirty hours you will create a lot of outliers in estimating for other tasks. These problems are all explainable though.

If you don’t have enough tasks, and you have fifteen hour tasks, you’re not making smaller solvable problems. If some projects are wildly under and others wildly over, you can have any number of problems, usually all of them; communication failure to development, failure of discovery with client, failure of knowing the consequences of decisions, feature creep, or flat out feature changes mid-project.

Again, if you can change the perception (this is very hard to do) of how people look at projects, you can erase the failures of discovery, feature creeps and (gross) feature changes. Consequences and communication just take experience and a willingness to improve.

Christianity and Art

For our loss, Protestantism destroyed lots of Christian art in its history. Not because it disagreed with the message, but rather it disagreed with art, as if in principle. So, it hasn’t created much art at all. But, not to gut the movement, it nearly single-handed lead to the focus on the written text, arguably as an art form. I came up in a Protestant, 70′s jesus-movement tradition which also had very little art, and no liturgy. I find this very disturbing because other Christian traditions have a rich history of art, and their liturgy is rich in music. It is one reason I enjoy going to Anglo/Catholic services.

An article on Handel’s Messiah in Christianity Today shows just how powerful music is. The Chinese government has banned the performance of western religious music. One word. Amazing.

In accordance with the understanding of the power and history of art in the Christian tradition, I hope to move our community in a more liturgical and artistic manner. I saw this discussion of art within Christianity and was very intrigued. Granted, it is a little high-brow, but here are the conclusions:

(8) Instead, art must be created or performed in such a way that it becomes a part of a life-giving process of mutually liberating solidarity with victims and survivors, the dying and those left for dead, around the world.

(9) Indeed, to think that art can ’seek the beautiful’, or be ‘a parable of redemption’, or come into the ‘proximity’ of the ‘beauty of God’ in the ‘crucified Christ’ apart from engagement in this life-giving process of mutually liberating solidarity is foolishness. Again, more strongly: to engage in artistic endeavours that seek the beauty of God (which is found in the crucified Christ), without simultaneously engaging the crucified Christ who is revealed in the poor people of history is, to borrow Adorno’s language, idiotic.

(10) To make this assertion is not to suggest that all art must then engage in some sort of overt or superficial didacticism. It is simply to suggest that the Christian artist — like Christians in every other profession — stands under the Lordship of Christ and is accountable to certain basic, and unavoidable, Christian commitments.

It sounds like a good starting point to me

The American Dream

At the Annual Theological Conference of the Society of Biblical Literature I went to one of the meetings where they had a book review of In The Shadow Of Empire edited by Richard Horsely. The conversation in that section was incredibly rich. It might be news to some here, but it was plainly evident to everyone in the section that America is in fact the new Rome. This country is the empire in the world that is oppressing and creating institutions that refuse peace and wholeness. One of those institutions is the American Dream. The dream itself is an institution which inhibits a progression of social justice. The discussion peaked with an audience question seeking to find an alternative dream to offer people. To some of us who have experienced such an American Dream we are then capable of jettisoning it. However, what of the oppressed who have not such a blessing (in as much as it is a blessing)? How can we deny them relief from their plight? We cannot deny them relief, obviously. What do we offer them instead?

These feelings remind me of this post on Internet Monk about the “Suburban Jesus”. So, I am certainly going outside his initial gripes, but I think they stem from the same place:

Suburban Christianity is frequently not about an honest following of Jesus. It’s about an edited, reworked Jesus who blesses the American way of life and our definition of normal and happy.


It’s Jesus the sponsor of our beautiful church. It’s Jesus the bus driver of the ticket to heaven. It’s Jesus the guy who wants us to be nice to children. It’s Jesus who presides over all kinds of niceness.

Remember that Jesus is a true revolutionary, and those who want Jesus but reject the revolution always have a nice slide show and plenty of facts and figures.


Remember that to those who are ignoring the game, or eating in the parking lot, or dozing in the sky boxes, the game on the field is just a game. To the players on the field, it’s blood, desperation, hope and perseverance.

But I haven’t gotten an alternative dream to the American Dream yet. Perhaps I fail to fully understand Jesus’ Kingdom message for now. I think I’ve got the full extent of his vision and the vision of the prophets for the restoration of the world. But, we don’t exactly live in that realization now. What realization do we live in? What is our hope, daily, monthly, yearly, for our lives? Besides the vague, and oft-touted fundamentalist “Glorify God”, what dream do we have to offer the impoverished and oppressed? Get out of your poverty, but do not sit in excess? Only to re-enter that impoverished world to help others? I am not sure they would find that particularly moving. Maybe they would and I’m the one off base.

On Scripture

When we approach the Scriptures we have a lot to consider. Obviously this topic intersects directly with worldview and epistemology, how we view the world, and how we know things. Often it is given an entire book, and is still not finished. Let us not be surprised then at just how large it is. Lets set some boundary markers.

Plainly, humans are responsible for carrying out God’s wishes. They are responsible for writing down and communicating what God wants communicated. God is not acting alone inside his creation. Rather, it is clearly evident that he prefers to act with us. The ‘Scriptures’ is the New Testament reference for the Hebrew Bible. In the first century, there is no Hebrew Canon. Texts like Tobit, the Wisdom of Solomon, and Enoch are known by many. The attestation of ‘truth’ to the Hebrew Scriptures lays on the truthfulness of God’s prophets, Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, and so on. These men heard God speak, “Thus YHWH says”, therefore the Scriptures contain, but are not the ‘word of God’.

Extending all this one level outward gets us a good deal further. The Scriptures are plainly a product of both man and God. Man’s individual and unique literary voices are stamped throughout the Scriptures. As is God’s story and plan for the world. This product of God working with man is called “inspired”. Sometimes God gives visions, like to Isaiah and Daniel. Sometimes God appears in a burning mountain, like Noah. Sometimes John the Baptist dunks people in water, re-enacting Israel’s fundamental and most basic story. And Sometimes, God twists the story, working with Jesus through going to the cross.

God’s story is seen from many different angles by the people in God’s drama. Sometimes people see it from God’s angle, sometimes not. But all texts are useful. The shoe-horning of the idea of a canon onto the ancient world is anachronism. Studying all the diverse texts we have available help us draw the picture of life and belief at that time. These are all competing stories, just like the Essenes and people at Qumran fought against the Saducees, and the Pharisees against them both. Each of these groups is telling the story of Israel and what God is doing slightly differently. Once we study these things we find that Jesus is harmonious with some aspects, and dissonant with others. The issue of who Jesus is and what he is saying is not cookie-cutter simple. He crosses some lines and blurs others. That is what makes him Jesus.

So when we see Jesus and his people declaring the Gospel, and working with God in the world (through the holy spirit), we see God inspiring men, and we see God’s very words as the words coming out of mens’ mouths. It is no coincidence that many times in the gospels ‘the word of God’ is linked directly with the Gospel. Out of Jesus’ proclamation of hope and the Gospel comes disciples. And out of their evangelization comes the early Church, and the texts of the New Testament.

Again, as I stated before, God is inspiring these people of the Church to go out, to stay in, to give freely, and to write – each is inspired, each God led. To create a Christian worldview, or to live a life as a Christian, these documents are authoritative. They record the seeds of the early Christian movement as found in Jesus. They record the acts of Jesus, and they record the acts of God around Jesus, which includes the early Church.

To turn to these documents themselves proves incredibly interesting. Seeing as we are two millenia and half a world away we have to do some serious work to understand the context in which all of these actions are done. If we fail to do so, we fail to understand exactly what God had done there. This notion of context also has serious repurcusions to understanding literature and rhetoric itself. We have to realize the different kinds of literature present in our texts, and the use of rhetoric within them. Even scholars recognize we’ve done a poor job at this at times (specifically understanding the means and aims of “proof-texting” in the ancient world). What we have in the case of the gospels is a sort of theological history (not a history of theologies, or religions, nor a theological telling of history) but a theologized historical account. Each of the gospel writers focus on what they want to say. They come from different angles, and with different focuses. If we want to do them justice we will each understand them as they desired to be understood. For example, if you went up to Franz Kafka as told him that his story Metamorphosis was an interesting account of treating insects as humans he might very well laugh at you. That was not his intention in writing that story, and to treat it as such is to do disrespect to his work. Or perhaps, if you told the meaning of the story of “Humpty Dumpty” to a 15th century Englishmen they might very well laugh at you. Since that story is about the downfall of their King Richard III in its original context. We’ve taken it as a nursery rhyme and appropriated it very different didactic uses. So, to understand the gospels, we must understand them as the author intends us to understand them.

Again, this leaves us with plenty of work to do. As many know, there are discrepancies and mis-matches, “errors” (if you will), in the Scriptures. I don’t mean to break anyone’s faith at all. Most of the so-called “errors” that many people bring up to challenge the Scriptures aren’t worth waving a stick at. There is still every reason to see the Scriptures as authoritative and inspired. This thing called being a Christian is just not that simple. If you think you’ve got all the answers, try again. I know I sure don’t.

Update

I just found these quotes, and I think they are exactly where I am going with all of this:

“To affirm ‘the authority of scripture’ is precisely not to say, ‘We know what scripture means and don’t need to raise any more questions’” (The Last Word [New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005], 91).

“I take it as a method in my biblical studies that if I turn a corner and find myself saying, ‘Well, in that case, that verse is wrong’ that I must have turned a wrong corner somewhere. But this does not mean that I impose what I think is right on to that bit of the Bible. It means, instead, that I am forced to live with that text uncomfortably . . . until suddenly I come round a different corner and that verse makes a lot of sense” (N.T. Wright, “How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?” Vox Evangelica 21 [1991]: 30). – An alien and a stranger

The Next Christian Hit

Enjoy yourselves: I Think My Wife is a Calvinist

Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews

The book by Paula Fredrickson, of the same title, is an astounding short read. It is an attempt to understand the crucifixion of Jesus historically. Why did the Jewish rabbi named Jesus die the death of a violent revolutionary? Of course the simple answer would be that he was a violent revolutionary – yet absolutely no direct evidence remotely hints that he was. All indications are that Jesus led a peaceful, arguably pacifist, movement. Fredrickson notes that if Jesus did lead a violent revolutionary movement, his followers along with him would have been crucified. James, the new leader of this movement lived in Jerusalem after the crucifixion. He moved freely there with no worry for his life. This is the fundamental paradox Fredrickson seeks to answer.

In the beginning of the book she briefly moves through the various methodological blunders that have taken the reins of the historical quests. I’m not entirely sure how to take certain portions of her writing. It is almost as if she willfully attempts various methodologies, liberal and fundamentalist to solves the problems but only gets frustrated. I cannot sort out what could be sarcasm from what could be a severe disdain for certain conclusions (regardless of method). By the end of the book she is fully engaged in, what I acknowledge to be based on other works of historical inquiry, the right kind of historical method.

The traditional explanation to the crucifixion is to follow the synoptic accounts. Jesus’ actions in the Temple are the direct reason for Jesus’ death by Pilate. Jerusalem during the feast of Passover was an intense time because of both the increased Roman military presence, and the heightened eschatalogical hope for salvation of the Jewish people. So, the slightest Jewish aggression would have incurred a Roman military response. The theory goes that Jesus’ actions in the Temple would have given the ruling Jewish aristocrasy a reason to get the Romans involved.

Fredrickson goes on to show why this fails for two reasons. First, another notable Jerusalem Jew Jesus ben Hanan, spoke of the Temple’s coming destruction – for seven years during all of the feasts. He was not put to death. He received punishment by both the Jewish ruling class and the Romans and was left to continue. Second, Jesus’ actions in the Temple would barely have been noticed by the throngs of people there. The temple mount is three football fields wide. The market is on one side under the porticos. Roman soldiers would have been stationed on the elevated porticos. Only the immediate masses around Jesus would have seen his actions, and only the Roman soldiers some sixty-plus yards away would have seen him. Combining these two facts, it would be historically unlikely that Jesus was crucified for this one action. So where do we go from here?

Fredrickson does a good job setting the scene of Jewish apocalyptic hope. I’m not sure if she retains the idea that the Jewish, and subsequently Christians, believed in the coming “end of the world”, or (what is gaining traction with me) the other understanding of apocalyptic literature, investing current events with theological significance through the use of cosmic and symbolic imagery. She also does a good job showing that there are various traditions behind the concepts of Kingdom, the Gentile participation, and Messiah. They all float on continums and gradients with various teachers and sects putting in their stakes at certain points along the way. Fredrickson does a fantastic job highlighting the relationship between Galilee, Jerusalem, and their respective rulers leading up to the time of Jesus, some of which brilliantly runs against current thinking on the subject. And in another brilliant turn she goes to the gospel of John, long thought to be the least historical, to find an answer to her perplexing question of Jesus’ crucifixion.

John’s basic structure depicts a wandering itinerant preacher Jesus, active for three years, with followers all over Israel, in Galilee, Jerusalem, Bethany, and more cities. The fair presumption here is that Herod of Galilee and Pilate of Jerusalem would have known who this Jesus is. He made regular appearances in synogagues and the Temple in Jerusalem. He did not hide from public life. In another interesting twist Fredrickson chooses not to see things from Jesus’ perspective here, but rather from Pilate’s! Because Pilate knows who Jesus is, there is no threat. Jesus has not actively sought to build an army. He has not actively made a messianic claim (no doubt some of his followers could have, and did, come to this conclusion. Again, she does not go towards Jesus’ self-understanding, Pilate couldn’t have cared less.) She writes “A straight line connects the Triumphal Entry and the Crucifixion.” Pilate witnessing this would not immediately be afraid of Jesus. He doesn’t see Jesus having any power. He knows that Jesus preaches a Kingdom which God will usher in, not the might of men. Surely other messianic claimants like Theudas the Egyptian made the same claim. Yet he also gathered thousands in the desert on marches re-enacting Joshua’s military entry into the promised land over the Jordan. Gathering crowds like this got Rome’s attention and they got rid of Theudas. However, Jesus never gathered crowds out in the desert like that. Yes, he baptized and fed. But nothing that wasn’t near a city where the people were from, or outside an already present congregation like the Temple or synogague. Fredrickson argues that precisely because of the crowds reaction to Jesus’ Triumphal Entry, laden with messianic tones, Pilate found it necessary to crucify Jesus. Again, it is passover and this is the time that sedition is most likely to break out. The people don’t even need a messianic figure to get started – and now they think they’ve found one. This satisfies how Jesus was crucified as an insurrectionist and his disciples were not. Because Pilate was not directly challenged, militarily, by the Jesus movement. Only indirectly by the claims of the masses on Passover. It was the crowd Pilate needed to control, and he did it by crucifying their newest messiah.

I find this line of argumentation, historically, to be very very persuading. It is no means a conclusive statement on Jesus’ identity, I don’t think it was intended to be. But it is very persuasive, and would require strong argumentation to dislodge, concerning the historical means of crucifixion.

On other accounts of theology, and Jesus’ self-identity, I don’t see any conflicts that this line brings up. It creatively uses the perspective of Pilate to understand Pilate’s own actions. And it has to do this in the first century Jewish context. It succeeds on both points. Having said that, I find myself very persuaded by NT Wright’s line of argumentation concerning Jesus’ self-identity. His work is equally historically focused, but from the perspective of Jesus himself. The only interesting point of integration required is the always sticky synoptic problem of where to put the Temple scene: with John in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, or with the synoptics, at the end. Bauckham’s work is giving John’s gospel a more vaulted place as history than is traditionally given to it. Certainly, the gospel of John isn’t any worse off (from a literary point of view) “getting Jesus crucified” without the Temple incident. And all of the synoptics include the Triumphal Entry. The argument of where it appropriately belongs may very well be less valuable than thought, if it is not a requirement for his crucifixion, where, again, in John it is not a requirement.

Homosexuality In The News

This topic is getting a lot of airtime lately. From the election coverage pitted as pro-life and pro-choice, or even pro-abortion. Resulting in the honest question from a conservative perspective, whether or not signing the FOCA legislation is the correct way to lower the number of abortions, which is on Obama’s list of peragotives. From there, we can hop to the Newsweek article, and the Christianity Today response – which is as much about the method as it is the issue. And to go further, Tuesday’s “Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and Mike Huckabee in which Stewart focused the conversation quite a bit on the issue of homosexuality. I’m not sure Huckabee knew that was coming, and for a layperson, I think he held his own fine, he certainly didn’t gain any ground or put up any worthwhile arguments – but what can you honestly expect to do on a satirical news show.

I’m somewhat surprised how much traction this issue seems to be getting. It isn’t a new issue, and nothing very interesting has been said so far. Yet it seems to have captured the ear and mouth of more than a few people – no doubt, I’m posting on it.

This should wake us all up a bit. We need to realize “because the Bible says so” is not an acceptable answer in the public sphere. It might be a fine answer inside the walls of your church, though I’d argue that still isn’t good enough. It might be a fine answer inside your home, though I’d argue that still isn’t good enough. It might be a fine answer in your prayer closet (and I’m not going to argue there). But, as we’re coming to realize, Christianity is not defined only in your prayer closets, though that makes up part of it. And it is not defined only in your home, though that makes up part of it. It is certainly not defined only in your church. Christianity exists out in the world. God’s Kingdom is a public event. It is not shrouded behind a cloud. When God breaks out and acts in the world, it is not a secret. The influence of the Church in the world should not be secret.

When we interact with the world, in an attempt to show them God, the Kingdom, and ourselves – we have to do it in a manner that connects with people. This whole thing is about people. And for people who don’t believe in the Bible, “because the Bible said so” is no reason at all. You aren’t any closer to helping them understand you, Jesus, Christianity, the Church, God, or the Gospel. As a matter of fact – you’re probably hurting the chance.

As a kind of opening argument, I hope to go through some of the issues of sexuality, not only homosexuality.

Update

A new, very pointed response to Newsweek has surfaced on the general lack of true journalism.

The Way to Spin Your Wheels

Is to perform tasks that take up plenty of time and effort, while delivering the lowest impact to the goal.

Document Management

I must admit that I cannot imagine a way to move a culture from an oral-based one to a document-based one.

Somehow, over a thousand years, western civilization has moved from a largely oral-based culture, to a document-based one. How does one attempt that same change in a small business, in less than a year? I haven’t a clue.

The businesses that have put effort into document management usually buy fancy and expensive “enterprise solutions” that don’t solve very much at all. It amounts to basically a top-down indexing and categorization system for Word docs. The businesses that don’t put effort into document management just have a bunch of version-tracked Word documents with various version names and folders on a shared company drive. Neither of these solutions seem to work very well.

The upside of oral-based communication is that it is quick, and high bandwidth. You can have a conversation with a museum curator and understand the artwork much quicker than reading your art history books. However, there are several failings. Unless the curator is giving a tour, you’re the only one in the museum that knows this information. And sometimes, you’re having a conversation with the wrong person – therefore they can give you misleading information.

In a software organization, documentation is important. Often times developers will say the code is the documentation. If the code is refactored, clean, and straightforward – then it can be the documentation. Yet, that creates a “priestly class”, refusing to translate the sacred text (code) into the vernacular for consumption. Generally, programmers are poor writers, and you want them spending their keystrokes writing code, not documentation. I think there is a solution that works around this priestly class idea.

The functional requirements become the start of documentation. Then, a usability document outlines the interface that will accomplish the requirements. Perhaps these are mockups with sticky notes, or something more verbose. Now development starts. A test plan gets written. This test plan tells us what will and will not happen, what we are testing positively and negatively. It outlines data sets to perform these checks, and expected results. Putting these three documents together can create the standard two marketing deliverables: training guides and user manuals. The functional requirement becomes the goal of the training program. The mockups are the screen captures. And the test plan informs the behavior and some sample data to work with. It can alert to common problems and wrong paths that should be trained against. And this can all get written to be digested by a common person, the user, in a user manual.

Now, everyone, even the common user, should be able to know what the heck an interface does! And if the programmers want to really know, they can use their own “documentation”, the code