Trust me, I know what I'm doing...

As I come up with ideas for blog entries, it allows me to look back at the lessons learned during my college years. One memory in particular that lends itself well to this forum was a physics experiment gone bad. The premise of this experiment was to measure the speed of light using lasers and fundamental measuring equipment. Once my lab partner and I performed the rudimentary testing of the individual pieces of equipment to ensure that everything was in working order, we proceeded with the experiment before us. At the end of the lab session, we had unequivocally proven that light crawled at a dismal 10 cm/sec*sec. Without a doubt, our discovery could set the fields of physics and science back centuries. As the teaching assistant peered over our results, he looked at us with total disdain. He informed my lab partner and me that we were to remain in the lab to demonstrate to him how we achieved this remarkable finding.

As the lab room became vacant, the teaching assistant had as walk through the experimental process that we performed that provided our amazing discovery. As we set-up the various lens used to refract the laser beam for measurement, he started shaking his head. My lab partner and I had reversed two of the lenses, and as a result, we were not measuring the refracted light at the appropriate angle! Even though we had painstakingly tested each component of our equipment prior to set-up to ensure its viability, we never considered incrementally testing the set-up during assembly. Rather, we naively believed that since each individual part worked correctly, than so would the assembled creation. To this day, I carry the lesson learned from that day: test early, test often and than test again! If everyone followed this hard learned philosophy, then the world of software development would be a much better place.