Roscoe Reports In

About a month later, Roscoe showed up as usual, with no notice and a chip on his shoulder. I figured he had had enough time to understand the essentials, and I was interested in what he had to say.

"Well, there sure seems to be enough written about this stuff," Roscoe opined as he pulled up a three-legged stool. "In fact, it's amazing to me that you could know so much about something so screwed up."

I allowed that our success rate in software projects was not quite up there in the spectacular category. Roscoe was unimpressed.

"Seems like folks think this stuff is really hard. Shoot! Digging for coal is hard. This is just software, after all."

I said, well, maybe we should use the word "difficult," not "hard," but Roscoe was not to be convinced.

"Hate to remind you, but the Egyptians built the pyramids. Of course, they did have that fella Euclid, who was nobody's fool.^[3] But, even today, the Amish can put up a barn in one day, for crying out loud."

^[3] This is a good example of Roscoe not letting his education get in the way: Euclid came after the pyramids, by a lot. He lived around 300 B.C., and the pyramids were built circa 2500 B.C. Makes the pyramids seem even more impressive, doesn't it?

"But," he continued, "there are some signs of hope."