Quantum Development

"Applications are composed of packets of chaos, known as 'quanta.' A quantum of chaos is the smallest unit into which an application can be divided." - Name of author withheld, due to health concerns.

This explains a lot.

So, the first thing I had to do was figure out which kids were in foster care. How hard could that be? After all, there I was, smack dab in the middle of Child Protective Services, with an award-winning database at my finger tips. But something wasn't adding up. This kid was eligible for services, but had no placement. That one had a placement, but no eligibility. The other ... The anomalies seemed to multiply before my eyes.

Fortunately, I was not the only member of the Batch Team. My colleagues could help. I went to Werner.

"Say, Werner," I began, "I'm having trouble figuring out who's in foster care. Can you help me out?"

Werner eyed me owlishly. He even sounded a bit like an owl. "Did you know," he hooted slowly, "that it is impossible to know eligibility and placement data at the same time? As soon as you look at one, the other one changes."

"Well, that certainly sounds completely daft," I said. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Of course, I'm feeling all right!" he snapped. "Haven't you studied Quantum Application Development? I'm letting you in on my Uncertainty Principle! It's a major breakthrough!"

"I, um, suppose it would explain some of my problems," I stammered uncertainly. "But do you have anything a bit more, uh, constructive to offer?"

"Constructive?" he scoffed. "Oh, well, I can tell you that you'll never get better than about 90% accuracy. Law of QAD. The rest ... who cares? Ninety per cent is pretty good. Why don't you just call Erwin? He's the program guy. He's supposed to be able to explain all the business rules."

That did sound like a good idea. I dialed up Erwin.

"Schrödinger!" he answered. "How can I help you?"

"I'm trying to figure out how to isolate the foster care population," I replied. "I was just talking to Werner, and he ..."

"Oh, don't listen to Heisenberg," Erwin cut in. "He doesn't know how this works."

"Then you can give me the selection criteria I need?" I asked gratefully.

"That ... depends," said Erwin, somewhat enigmatically.

"Depends ... on what?" I asked suspiciously.

"I will send you a Word doc," said Erwin.

"Oh, good. With the selection criteria?"

There was a moment's silence.

"I send you the Word doc," said Erwin finally, "but you will not know whether it has the selection criteria in it until you open it."

"What is this?" I asked hotly. "Some kind of game? I have to guess which Word doc you put the criteria in?"

"Not at all," said Erwin. "You misunderstand. Until you open the doc, the selection criteria are neither in it nor not in it. It's all up to you. The universe is very subjective. A word to the wise: 80 to 90% accuracy is pretty good."

"Is this more of that quantum stuff?" I groused.

"More, as you say, 'of that quantum stuff,'" replied Erwin affably.

He emailed me the Word doc. It was empty.

Albert was my last resort. He was another member of the Batch Team.

"Albert! Help!" I sobbed.

"Hush! One moment!" Albert held up his hand like a traffic cop. "I'm working on my General and Special Theories of Foster Care Eligibility!"

"Then maybe you can help me," I persisted. "You can start by explaining Quantum Development to me."

"Nonsense!" snapped Albert. "Pish-tosh, too! Don't you believe that QAD crap. Unix would never shoot craps with the Production Environment."

"Then you can help me figure out how to select the population of kids with foster care from our database?" I asked hopefully.

Albert paused. "Let's do a thought experiment," he suggested.

"A ... what?" I asked.

"Ok, the CPS and Human Services databases are in an elevator together," he barged on, heedless of my whimpered protest. "The elevator plunges toward the earth. The two databases crash into each other. What do you have?"

"I have no idea," I blubbered.

"A great, big mess !" crowed Albert triumphantly.

"That's what I have now," I peeped. "Aren't you going to tell me that 90% is good enough?"

"Ninety per cent?" laughed Albert. "You'll be lucky to get fifty."

"And this is supposed to make me feel better?" I asked reproachfully.

"Feel better?" Albert retorted. "Of course not. If you want to feel better, eat a bagel. My brother and I have opened a nice bagel shop. Come on over after work. I'll give you a coupon!"