Due to my wife’s awesome family, I’ve been exposed to the wide world of tractors. With as little as 100 hours of driving, plowing, bush-hogging, breaking, repairing, and maintaining, I’ve grown so very fond of these old machines. Picture above is our 1954 Ford 600 tractor “upgraded” to a 640, in Powder Springs, GA, USA. This my wife’s grandfather’s pride and joy.
So…what do you do with another new passion or hobby? Buy a book of course! The only one that seemed to hit the mark for me was the Antique Tractor Bible: The Complete Guide to Buying, Using and Restoring Old Farm Tractors. The author’s research and respect for the subject inspired me. One passage in particular…
This single paragraph reminded me how important technology is to our society, especially software. And the software that has been built to create this new world, much of it is now antique.
One amazing feature about tractor driving is that you have plenty of time to think. As I drove and pondered old software and tractors, an analogy between the two began to form. These thoughts are not complete but analogies are fun and in many cases provide insights. Given that I used to write software and love patterns, these similarities and differences just kept getting more and more intriguing. So I figured I’d share a few of my software/tractor thoughts to start a conversation.
Antiqueness
Old but still useful – both tractors and software. One of the oldest pieces of software known to still be in use today is called MOCAS, created in 1958. How much more software is out there that we don’t know, appreciate, or need to preserve? Maintaining usefulness of a tractor from 1947 begins with knowledge, attention, and patience. Software requires similar care. Much more to noodle here.
Maintenance & Upgrades
The usual maintenance and occasional upgrades? Oh, is it constant! Something is always broken. That goes for tractors as well. With a tractor something always needs to be tweaked, cleaned, changed, repaired, replaced, etc. By doing this, the machine continues to operate. As for upgrades, on occasion one might desire to increase horse power, just a bit. For example, my wife’s grandfather decided to “upgrade” his 1956 Ford 600 to have the power of the 640 model. When the upgrade was accomplished, he added some stickers to announce the upgrade.
Community
Lastly, community is essential in software development. Communication is the essence of community. Listening to, or reading, the “old timer” reminiscing on how it was done in her/his days can be enlightening. Those days might be six months ago with software and with the “old timer” being younger than you, perhaps with intentional blue hair, but the stories are still sometimes astounding. Wisdom is found within community. The key is to stop and listen to your community.
I think that’s enough for now. The conversation and these thought experiments are just a beginning. Please share your thoughts here and I’ll continue to drive, plow, bush-hog, break, repair, maintain, and ponder about these beautiful antique machines. Remember, don’t take antique for granted.
Original article published on LinkedIn on October 30, 2017.
Tractors & Tables 