To Err is Human ?

“To err is human - and to blame it on a computer is even more so”

I was thinking over this concept while I’m on the way to my office this morning. When I opened an email from diwakar, I was surprised to see the same proverb generated by Google, Which became a reason for the following thoughts to run through my mind.

Being in IT Field, we often hear a phrase “bug in an Application”. I wondered why a phrase like this comes into existence. While the definition and the real purpose of Application software is stated as

“Application Software is the subclass of computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform.”

Then How-come we can blame application software to have a bug while it’s performing a task the user wishes to perform? Only possible reason for such blame came in to existence may be because the application software performing other tasks the user didn’t want to take place. Is it so?

Is the program malfunctioning or the program couldn’t handle a specific scenario?

In either case it’s not the fault with the program but with the programmer himself. Programs are mere 0’s and 1’s written by a programmer. It doesn’t have a self thinking capability to solve a problem it’s solving or to perform a task it’s performing. It’s just doing the work as it’s been told to do so. Still if it’s said to be malfunctioning then it’s been told to malfunction for the specific scenario or the specific scenario should have left ignored by a programmer while defining the rules for the program to function as he wishes.

It should be worth saying “bug in a programmer” or “himself a bug” instead of blaming the program for malfunctioning as it’s been asked to malfunction by a human error.

If a human is punished for a crime that he has never committed, we are supporting him or giving a chance to prove him. Why the programs aren’t given chances to prove their innocence.

Is it merely because they can’t feel like us or they can’t prove themselves or is it because they are just binary servants made of electric signals?

Answer to the above questions is no. They are blamed because humans don’t like to be blamed for their mistakes. They are blamed because humans are such ignorant creatures living in this world. They are blamed because Humans are thinking they are the rulers of this world.

Being a great Think-tank, They assume they rule the world with their inventions. The real fact is it their inventions that rule them. The best examples are languages, Religion, Currency, Computer, etc. These are invented by humans for their own convenience but these greatest inventions are the reasons for the inconvenience caused to humans. Languages are invented to communicate in ancient times but it’s been used to differentiate people nowadays. Religions are invented to bring obedience and knowledge among humans but it’s been used to destroy them throughout the history. Currency is invented to act as the moderator in a transactions but it’s now used as a status measuring quantity. Computer is invented to bring down humans’ work burden but it’s now aiding the unemployment today.

Every Invention that Human made is now destroying his own civilization, in other technical terms making a human life a mechanical one. Is it all because of humans’ inventing capability? No, Humans were born as inventors, it’s their duty to invent something otherwise it could be a great failure of Mother Nature for creating such a weird species.

But it’s the erroneous and ignorant behaviours that make their inventions as deadly as Humans. Misusing, over reliability on such invention lead him to the life he is living now. He himself made his life a difficult one by relying too much on his machines. The one who is using computer doesn’t know how to repair it when it’s not working. The one who does programming in modern day programming languages doesn’t know how to program in machine language. I’m not compelling to learn everything, but I’m trying to highlight the point how he quickly forget the path he came through.

Humans are such a lazy people, once he found a shortcut to do the work he never tends to learn the hard way of doing it. They simply ignore it. They need everything to be done as quickly as possible. No matter what how it’s been done. They just need their need be fulfilled.

After living a billion or million of years on Earth, doesn’t he found what he’s missing out? He knows perfectly that it’s his ignorance is the cause of his sufferings, Then why couldn’t he rectify his problem. This is where a typical human behaviour plays its role. He simply ignores the fact that he is ignorant.


Conclusion:
Even if there is god and he is the one who created humans and intended to control their life, I’m sure that humans are one of his failure experiments. I would have suggested that it would be a waste of time to create humans, if I were his business analyst. Even he doesn’t have a control on them as human life is a “typical bug” in god’s program

Hence forth I would like to change that proverb as

“To err is Godly and to ignore is human”

I know the achievement of this article will be a nothing since the meaning of this article is also nothing. I know this too well but what to do. The fact is, I’m a human too and the bottom line is I used to ignore things. :D