Ordinary Nothing

A little while ago I was reading a post discussing the effects of the environment on code quality
(i.e. how working conditions are related to the quality of programmers). And
one of the items mentioned there was dedicated floor space.

Which makes sense, it’s easy to see the relation between the quality
of work done, and whether you’re stuck in a tiny cubicle or in a spacious
office. In either direction.

In any case, the sizes discussed where 46, and 87, square feet. And for
about any case of area, 46 square feet would indicate an area sized
6.78 x 6.78 feet. Very intuitive, very obvious, very mathematically
correct, and yet I managed to misinterpret it.

You see, in all the times I got to be around anything involving
construction and floor space (Workers and architects discussing room
design and carpeting for my home when I was little, or similar
discussions more recently about office buildings for companies I worked
at), for some reason everyone called an N by N meters area "N square
meters". This is patently wrong, and I have a hard time believing it’s
some sort of an industry standard, but that’s what they all did. So
this way of referring to floorspace got stuck in my head.

And reading 46 square feet, I automatically converted it to a 46×46 feet area, which is
huge. Certainly as the smaller option being correlated with the
less-good programmers, but even in and by itself it’s larger than about any office I saw anywhere…

I replied accordingly, asking if maybe it’s
a mistake and they intended to write 4.6 and 8.7. Which is, as was
appropriately replied to me, about the size of a refrigerator box, and
certainly not something you could stick an average programmer in. Well,
not in working order, anyway.

One good thing came of it, I’m finally rid of this particular problem,
and will be able from now on to treat all area measurements the same,
regardless of what is the area actually of. Which is the proper
mathematical approach to things. At least I only got a little
embarrassed, rather than comissioning a new hourse and coming to view the construction only to discover I’m
paying for a palace…

April 12th, 2005 at 19:38 EET | Categories: Personal | Track comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.