Sara Elzayat — Blog

Thinking Outside The Box

2020-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

What is the next letter in this sequence: A E I. And what is the next number in this sequence: 1 5 9 13? How about this one: B C D G J?
A boy and his mother got into a terrible car accident. They are taken to the emergency room, but on the way to the hospital, the mother dies. Upon their arrival to the hospital, the nurse exclaims: “But that boy is my son!”. How can that be?
You’re in the ground floor of a house. There are three light switches. Upstairs, there are three light bulbs. The door on the top of the stairs will be locked behind you when you leave the ground floor. How can you determine which switch goes to which light bulb?

That kind of puzzles is often proposed as an exercise in “thinking outside the box”. However, if I were to “think outside the box”, I would bore a hole in the ceiling of the ground floor so I would be able check the light bulbs. Clearly, my solution is not the meant solution, and most people wouldn’t find it a fair solution, either. The purpose is to declare what “requirements” are real, and what requirements are imagined by the solver of the puzzle.

Same technique applies when it comes to solving software problems. For example, one of my clients who wanted a chat application, asked for a link directing to the help information in the status bar. This addition would require some layout changes that I considered a bit risky. Now, if I had suggested that the users won’t need the help information link, I would really be thinking outside the box. Instead, I ended up giving privileged users the right to send URLs in a normal chat box, which was a piece of cake. This way, the privileged users would be able to help other users to find the rules. I consider this thinking inside a larger box.

That’s why I don’t really care about thinking outside the box. Instead, I care about looking for the larger box.

PS: Finding the larger box is often easier if you work with others. I spent a huge embarrassing amount of time trying to solve the Petals Around the Rose puzzle. But when I decided to sit down with my friend (who didn’t know it, either), we solved it in about 15 minutes (yeah, yeah, yeah, she was done with it in about 10 minutes and smiled cleverly until I finished it 5 minutes after her).

بقايا النهار

2020-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

تترك قراءة رواية بقايا النهار للياباني كازو إيشيغيرو لذعة في النفس، وشئ من غصة لا يُمحى بسهولة.

حين شرعتُ في قراءتها، لم أكن في مزاج مناسب للقراءة ولكن وجود اسم الكاتب الياباني عليها شكل عامل إغراء قوي بالنسبة لي إضافةً إلى عنوانها الملفت The Remains of the Day مما حملني على قرائتها لأجول في الحياة برفقة ستيفنز الذي يكتشف أن النهار موشك على الإنقضاء، نهاره هو بالذات، ولم يتبق من اليوم إلا البقايا.

تستخدم الرواية أسلوب تيار الوعي الحديث لتروي حياة ستيفنز، رئيس الخدم الكهل، والحيوات الأخرى التي ارتبطت به. ستيفنز الذي أصبح الآن كبير خدم يعمل لحساب رجل أعمال أمريكي اسمه فارادي، يقترض سيارته ويذهب ليكتشف الريف بناءً على اقتراح من مخدومه، يدفعه أمله في استعادة الآنسة كنتون لتعاود العمل معه في دار دارلنغتون. أملاً في استعادة اللحظات الضائعة، ويصحح خياراته، مقنعًا نفسه بأن النهار ما زال طويلاً.

يتأمل ستيفنز خلال رحلته في تأمل الريف حياته هو بالذات، ويستعيد اللحظات التي يعتقد أنها أثرت عليها بشكل مباشر. تكتسب ذكرياته صيغة من التبرير البارد، هو هكذا لأنه لا يعرف كيف يكون شخصًا آخر. لقد جرب كل ما بوسعه ليصبح من المتميزين في مجاله، ومن أجل ذلك، ضحى بوجوده الخاص وإرادته الخاصة كإنسان حر. ووجد نفسه في نهاية المطاف على حافة النهار، دون أن يملك حتى الحق في أن يعترف بأنه كان مخطئًا.</br>

على حافة النهار يجلس ستيفنز، ما زال هُناك الوقت قبل حلول الظلام، ورغم السكرة، يجب ألا يضيع شيء بقايا النهار كما ضاع هو.

قرأت هذه الرواية في نسخة مترجمة للعربية في عام 2010، وفي نفس العام حصلت على نسخة مختصرة لها باللغة الإنكليزية، واحتفظت بالنسخة الإنكليزية في سبيل تحسين لغتي. منذ 2010 وحتى هذه اللحظة تغير الكثير، وأصبح الشعور بقرب انقضاء النهار أقوى من أي وقت مضى. حسبتني نسيت أمر الرواية، لكنني حين قررت العكوف على القراءة من جديد لاشتياقي لها ولصقل لغتي، أمضيت أمدًا أتقلب بين الكتب من الحيرة لا أدري بماذا أبدأ، أفكر تارة، هل أقرأ عن قصة غراهام غرين المدمرون؟ هل أقرأ عن القوة والمجد؟ أم أشد رحالي بعيدًا عنه لأقرأ عن شيطان جيرمي ليفنز؟ أو ربما، من الأفضل أن أقرأ عن محبوبة توني موريسون؟ أو السيدة دالواي رفيقة فرجينيا وولف؟ لم أستطع أن أحدد بماذا أبدأ نهائيًا، حتى تذكرت بقايا النهار وكم أنني بحاجة لإعادة قرائتها، حينها، وفي يوم واحد فقط. أنهيتها وكانت للمرة الثانية فارقة في قرار وجب علي أخذه. أُهنئ نفسي، فقد استفدت من تأرجحي على حافة النهار، وربما أستطيع التشبث به حتى النهاية.

أُنتج عن هذه الرواية فيلم يحمل نفس الاسم قام ببطولته أنتوني هوبكنز وإيما ثومبسون، ولم أره حتى الآن.

Admit you didn’t know it, to learn it

2018-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

This is not a very original thought for a first blog. Nevertheless lately I’ve been thinking of that topic often enough to make it worth spending a few minutes writing and posting it as a first blog post.

According to Wikipedia a Knowledge Worker is:

Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge.

Most Software-related workers that I’ve met so far totally aware that knowledge is their most important asset. Unfortunately this can have very negative side effects.

Being paid just for having a knowledge in a scientific field or in a specific technology makes it really hard for someone to say “I didn’t know that”. After all, if your knowledge is your most important asset how could you admit that you lack of it?

I completely believe that being honest about what we know and what we don’t know is an essential for our learning progress as starters or professionals.

The fields we are working in today. In them, the things we could know about are evolving really fast, even faster than anyone of us can learn them. We are gradually knowing less and less about our field, every single day passing.

Whatever kind of government education you have, that part is only a very small (yet very important) part of your whole knowledge. The remaining of your knowledge is based on your personal experience. The chance of you knowing some things that your colleague doesn’t know and vice versa is really high, for any given topic.

In my opinion, there are three potential reactions when being confronted with something you don’t know:

Give a nod and pretend that yeah, you know about it.
Give a nod, pretend that yeah, you know about it and then go read about it.
Say that you never heard of it and get as much knowledge as possible from the conversation.

Don’t get my words the wrong way. Reading is so great and I believe we all must thrive to increase our knowledge in whatever field we are working in. But if you have any chance to learn something that interests you from someone who knows about it at the small cost of a “I didn’t know that” it wouldn’t be smart to let that opportunity fly away.

Learning from other people is incredibly powerful and is one the fastest ways to gain new knowledge. Smart people are glad to share their knowledge. You better ask as many questions as possible to get the answers you’re looking for.

While writing this blog I felt that I have to come up with a new definition to a knowledge worker, a definition that is closer to the reality of volcanic information growth in the 21st century:

Knowledge workers are those with a strong understanding of the concepts inside their field and a strong ability to quickly acquire a new knowledge by the most efficient means.

You know a little, you know a lot. Make the best out of this contradiction.

Site Launched

2017-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

Well. Finally got around to putting this old website together. Neat thing about it - powered by Jekyll and I can use Markdown to author my posts. It actually is a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.