EppsNet

As I was walking to the coffee machine, I overheard one of our developers trying to explain to a development manager that acceleration due to gravity is independent of horizontal motion.

He was illustrating the concept with a well-known example: that a bullet dropped from a given height will hit the ground at the same time as a bullet fired horizontally from a gun at the same height.

“I don’t agree with that,” the manager said.

“Agree with it?!” the developer said. “The law of gravity doesn’t depend on you agreeing with it.”

When I got my coffee and walked back, the manager was starting to waver.

“Okay, I believe that they would hit at the same time,” he said, “assuming there was not a lot of wind affecting the bullets.”

Not surpisingly, this is completely consistent with his management style, in which he forms opinions independent of physical reality, and then tries to bluff his way through the resulting chaos.

Ironically, one of the reasons I got into software development in the first place was the opportunity to work with bright, educated people . . .

Thus spoke The Programmer.