An Engineer's Guide to Everyday Superstitions

By Super Neuro

Long-term agent of this public account:

Code supernatural review, annotation to summon divine power, company naming, computer room consecration, housewarming ceremony, conversion ceremony, etc., you are not allowed to ask for money, you are not allowed to ask for money, you are not allowed to ask for money.

When talking to today's young people, especially those who have received scientific education, about topics like "traditional Chinese medicine" and "releasing animals into the wild", they will usually roll their eyes and give you lengthy rebuttals.

"superstitious"This word doesn't seem to have much to do with the engineering community.

What we say An Engineer's Guide to Everyday Superstitions, refers more to some special laws and phenomena that occur in this professional environment, perhaps "A guide to curing an engineer's obsession with metaphysics"It would be more appropriate.

When it comes to the word "metaphysics", people often avoid talking about it. Today we summarize several common metaphysical and superstitious scenes in engineers' work, and you can experience them yourself with just a glance.

Engineers' obsession with metaphysics

– Early patient cases –

• crowd:Common among engineers with less than five years of work experience, often suffering from Chuunibyou;
• feature:They usually think that if there is a problem with the program, it must be caused by external forces, not their own problems;
• symptom:Mumbling to oneself, "It works for me," "Try restarting it," etc.
• therapy:Little yellow duck debugging method, code sacrifice method

– Common early treatments-

• Little yellow duck debugging method:

Also known as the rubber duck debugging method, the yellow duck deworming method (Rubber Duck Debugging）

This is a method of debugging code used in software engineering. During the debugging, troubleshooting or testing of the program, the operator patiently explains to the little yellow duck the function of each line of program in order to inspire inspiration and discover contradictions.

This concept is based on a legend that a programmer carries a little yellow duck with him every day. When debugging code, he will put the little yellow duck on the table and then explain each line of code in detail to the little duck.

• Code Sacrifice Method:

Some engineers believe that by injecting some patterns or formulas into the comments, they can summon mysterious power to protect the code. These magical code snippets are widely circulated among this small group of people and become a self-defense secret in the world.

We found these clues in some secret book fragments:

– Mid-term patient cases –

• crowd:Mid-stage disease is common among operation and maintenance engineers, technical directors, CTOs, etc.
• feature:Patients believe that before a new computer room or important equipment is put into use, sincere prayers for blessings can gain divine power and maintain online stability;
• symptom:We hired a master to change the company's name, check Feng Shui, and consecrate the computer room.
• therapy:The method of opening the computer room and the method of moving to a new house

– Common treatments in the mid-term

• Opening method of the machine room:

The famous game company that developed "Assassin's Creed" and "Prince of Persia"UbisoftBecause the server often crashed, players complained: Ubisoft's server is powered by potatoes, so Ubisoft's server has always been jokingly called "potato server".

When the new game was launched in 2017, Ubisoft invited a famous European archbishop to enter the computer room to perform an exorcism ceremony on the server.

• Auspicious tips for moving into a new house:

Also in the second half of 2017, a well-known domestic two-dimensional video website released a set of photos before moving into its new office.

In the photo, the website opened a formal Taoist temple in the new office, with Tianshi talismans on the wall and a Taoist priest performing a kowtow ceremony.

This is not Cospaly, but the company invited a Zhengyi Taoist priest to perform a ritual on the occasion of the move, which is called "Anlong Diantu" in Taoist rituals.

– Advanced Patient Cases –

• crowd:This disease is common among big men who have become winners in life;
• feature:After achieving success, one becomes confused and thinks it is difficult to explore the ultimate mysteries of the universe in social life.
• symptom:Suddenly let go of myself and announced that I would enter the next stage of life
• therapy:Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels

– Common treatments for late stage-

• Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels:

In the Internet industry, there are actually very few people who can purify their six senses and cut off their worldly thoughts, and even fewer who can truly take refuge in the Three Jewels. However, among them, there are a few people who can be regarded as role models.

At the age of 31, he became the richest man in ChinaChen Tianqiao, and also converted to Buddhism.

After converting, Chen Tianqiao and his wife donated nearly 1 billion RMB to the Brain Science Institute of California Institute of Technology for research projects on the human brain. When talking about his conversion and donation, Chen Tianqiao said:All living beings suffer, so it is better to save yourself.

When talking about engineers who are deeply immersed in the field of Buddhism, we have to mention Mr. Joe.

JobsHe started to have health problems in 1997. First he developed kidney stones and other diseases, and later doctors found a pancreatic tumor in the test results.

Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004, but he did not undergo surgery immediately. Before surgery, he tried alternative therapies such as vegetarianism, acupuncture, herbal treatments, juice cleanses, emptying the intestines, and even seeking help from a psychic.

He has always loved studying Eastern mystical philosophy, and even during his illness, he traveled around the world to practice Zen, frequently traveling to Japan and India to practice Zen with Zen masters and monks.

The psychological basis of metaphysics

As highly intelligent creatures, we humans are born with "Creating something out of nothing"We can associate the shapes of clouds with heavenly soldiers and generals, and we can associate the patterns in ink stains with reality. The earliest divination came from looking for signs from heaven on burnt tortoise shells.

Our ability to easily spot patterns helps us make sense of the world, but sometimes we become overly sensitive and assign too much meaning to relationships and regularities that don't exist.

For example, if you wear a red watch one day and that day goes unusually smoothly, although it is just a coincidence, it is very easy for us to establish a connection between the two things and think that wearing a red watch brings good luck. Therefore, you may wear a red watch frequently from then on to enhance your self-confidence.

Evolutionary psychologists believe that discovering patterns and assuming causal relationships is an innate psychological tendency that we have developed through evolution.

Superstition can also help us gain a sense of control.

In life, we cannot control many things: because we cannot directly control the outcome of events, we forward koi or Yang Chaoyue to "bless" us; because we don't know what will happen in the future, we believe in horoscopes and astrology to get a feeling that the dark road ahead is illuminated.

The same is true in the scientific and engineering communities. Before too many problems are explained by science, programmers, like ordinary people, also hope to obtain the power of the golden finger.

Easter Eggs

Forward this article → to your most superstitious friend,

May the crazy lady bless you → There will be no bugs in the next 1000 lines of code