"That's not going anywhere"

In my last entry, I was lamenting the fact that I couldn't get any ideas for a blog entry when I could actually use them. Just now, I heard someone use one of my favorite sayings, "That's not going anywhere."

I remember my father using that phrase when we would be loading something in the car or a truck. I'd be worried that when we got moving, the load would shift or fall out. So, he'd give this incantation, "Don't worry. That's not going anywhere." And it never did. I know it wasn't the words that kept the thing from moving - t was his being careful and knowing from experience how to place things. But there was something about the phrase that seemed to not only put me at ease but it appeared to be like closing the door as you left or putting the period at the end of a sentence. You just did it. It was the final step of the process.

My father certainly couldn't have invented the phrase. He must have heard it somewhere else. I often joke with my friends when we are loading something into a truck: We're not done until someone says, "That's not going anywhere." The other silly part of this is that of course, it IS going somewhere! We're loading it into a truck (or onto a ship) for goodness sake. What we mean is, "That's not going to shift," or "That's not going where we don't want it to go," but those don't have the same ring.

Maybe we need something like this in engineering. Or maybe engineers have been using this all along. I'll bet the builders of the pyramids said, "That's not going anywhere." Maybe the engineers of the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge (the one that collapsed) forgot to say, "That's not going anywhere" before they opened it for traffic. This is fine for Civil Engineering but what about for Electrical, Electronics or Software Engineering? We need a finalizing incantation, too.

How about, "That's not drifting anywhere," for an electrical analog circuit? Maybe, "That's not burning out anytime," for a high power electrical system. But I can't think of anything appropriate for software. "That's not being misused anytime," for a program function just doesn't cut it. It lays all the blame on the people using the function in the future. Maybe something like, "That's solid code," after SteveMaguire's book, " Writing Solid Code." Or maybe, "That's not breaking anytime," or "No bugs there."

I don't know. The trouble with software is - you know there's going to be a problem with it eventually. You just haven't found it yet.