Thoughts from Stockholm

I spent the day walking around Stockholm. I started with the Vasa Museum which was recommended many times over. It was pretty neat, this is the only picture that “made” it however – the museum was very dark and most of the photos came out that way (dark):

That shows part of the hull of the Vasa as it would have been painted back then (after much testing – the experts confirmed that) next to parts of the hull as it looked when the ship was lifted. The bright shiny lights in the picture are reflectors – they had hundreds of them all over the ship for some reason (did not make for good pictures obviously). If you are interested in the Vasa and why we as technical people working on software should care – you need to read this link provided by “Anonymous”. I remember watching a Discovery Channel special on the Vasa and it was pretty cool to see it, and to be able to tie the entire story back to what I see all of the time. The most amazing part of the story – they tested stability (ran a benchmark) before launching and knew the ship would not float (people running back and forth on the deck could capsize the boat). That is like shipping the code – knowing it won’t work (which happens…)

Pressure from the King (management) forced them to “ship it” (all pun intended) with predicable results. At least people don’t typically die from software implementations (not often, think about how much of our lives is falling under the control of software though….).

I concur with the many comments on the blog before that this is a paper to read – you will see amazing parallels to our everyday lives in that paper.

After the Vasa, I walked over to Gamla Stan – Stockholm’s Old Town:

This is what I like to walk around and see – old stuff. I spent about 1.5 hours in the museum – and about 3 hours here, just taking in the sights. Ended up having a very late lunch (early dinner) at the “oldest pub in Stockholm” (at least they said so). As a tribute to our current state of technology – I had a conversation with my manager over instant message while he had breakfast and I had lunch. I remember going to the UK in 1993 and feeling like I had fallen off the end of the earth. No email, no phone, no nothing – no network. Today in 2005, I was messaging with someone in Denmark, my manager in the US and responding to email – all from within a pub in Stockholm on my phone.

I’m still not sure if that last bit is good or bad… But it is convenient. And the beer, it was probably the best in Sweden.

Tomorrow, I travel to the UKOUG – I’ll update over the week with some pictures/commentary from the conference. Looking forward to the “blogger dinner” on Monday.