ICS and OCSD (obsessive computer station disorder)
I majored in Information and Computer Science in college or “ICS”. It is a field of study that focuses on making software. Programming, Algorithms… that sort of thing. I loved it and I hated it. That’s how it goes for most people in college I would imagine. But now that I’m working in the field… I can see that I loved it more that I hated it. Making software is like playing God in some kind of weird way. Technology has evolved so much that if you wanted to make your computer do something and you knew how to code… you could do it. Gone are the hardware limitations that hindered so many past developers. Right now, literally, the sky is the limit.
But with great power comes great personality disorders. Or something like that.
I’ve be programming now for about 10 years. I’ve been fortunate enough to save most of social skills and self respect. However I’ve just recently begun to notice the toll programming has taken on my mind.
I’m becoming slightly “OCSD”. And only about computer things too. Hence the official term (that I just made up right now) Obsessive Computer Station Disorder.
Now, mind you, I’m not a neat person. In fact I’m just about the slobbiest, messiest person you can find. But it’s different about computer things.
Just the other day, my boss told me to move a Virtual Machine to another server. The problem was that server 1 had all Windows XP machines and server 2 had all Windows 7 machines. Moving machine to the other would violate some imaginary order that my mind had set. I procrastinated doing that until the end of the day. And doing it was hard.
Also, I can’t seem to delete anything at work. Anything and everything is tucked into a folder that I can easily get to. My bookmarks are organized and sorted and a cluttered desktop drives me crazy.
So what happened to me?
Well, I have a theory. Programming is basically talking to a computer and telling it what to do. The only thing is, you have to talk the computer’s language. Which would be fine if you can fudge things one way or another and the computer would still understand the gist of what you are saying. But that’s not the case at all. If you aren’t 100% correct with what you said, then the computer will shrug at you, freeze and become utterly useless.
Imaging working with someone like that. If you wanted someone to open the door for you. You’d have to tell that person which direction to walk, how many steps to take, where to put his or her hand, and then how far to pull the door open. If you didn’t tell that person all those things, he or she would simply stand there and look at you, or even worse, collapse on the ground.
So needless to say programming requires a bit of attention to detail. Something which has leaked into my other computing habits.
From ICS to OCSD.
From one acronym to the next.
