Doing it backwards

A few years ago when I worked for NatWest (now part of RBS), I was on a project team that was called 'Re-engineering' for about two years.

It was a very unusual sort of project for a Bank to have, as it was an R&D project that was making programming tools that could be used to analyse code, with the aim to re-engineer or reverse engineer it.

Lots of old code has been hacked over the years and is lacking in any serious documentation, causes all sort of problems when changes have to be made. Our tools would be able to help.

Another reason that this project came about was because of the approaching year 2000, and all the problems that were promised would happen when the date flipped from 1999 to 2000. So the media said, aircraft would fall from the sky, computer equipment wouldn't work, video recorders would spit the tapes out, and nuclear power stations would go into meltdown. The media hype was so good, that one of my friends asked me if his washing machine would still work in the year 2000. I did quiz him to see if he knew why the washing machine needed to know what time it was before doing the washing, and he couldn't think of any. So I told him it was safe to assume it would still work.

On the Re-engineering team there were some pretty smart people who had been working in the field of code and language analysis for many years. They had great knowledge of the structure of language, how to analyse code and producing a model onto which various forms of data manipulation could be applied. I was most lucky to work with them.

We had two types of manipulation that could be applied, static and dynamic analysis.

The static analysis was simply looking at the code itself and producing a model from it. You could then for example track how data was moved through the program, passed from field to field.

Dynamic analysis built on top of the static analysis as it added information from an actual run of the program. Then you could see the logical paths of execution in the program. This information added much more depth to the analysis.

They were very interesting tools. They were used in some Bank projects in the UK and in South Africa. Some of the tools were even sold to third party companies. I believe IBM got a pretty neat bit of code that run on the mainframe for next to nothing.

So what has this all to do with woodwork?

Well, about a year and half or so ago I was making some presentation Champagne boxes. Once these were complete, I made another using a different technique.  Now, a year and a half later I am making some more, but I can't remember that different technique I used. I still have the prototype in the workshop, and I have reverse engineered it and produced a set of diagrams, and the new batch has been started.

So there is the connection. No documentation

My stand at ELDS 2010

So the show ran for three full days, with a private view on the Thursday night. 

I must say that although I normally stand up all day in the workshop, at the end of an eight hour day in front of my stand, my back was killing me!  I must have looked an older man than I actually am as I walked down the road towards the tube station, and then struggled to sit down on the train.

Although the weather was cold, there was good attendance at the show. Of course wanting to look my best in front of all the public, I could not risk wearing a hat on my way to the show in morning as my hair would get messed up and be sticking up all over the place. I never realised I was that vain.

Here is a picture of my stand this year.

In addition to having just furniture on my stand, I also had a number of different boxes for sale (jewellery boxes, pencil boxes, champagne boxes).  I am pleased to say I sold a good fair number. It does make the day more pleasant to sell something!

I am back in the workshop now making a blanket chest. This I hope will be one of the items in my next show.  For details of my upcoming shows, check out the 'Exhibitons' page on my website.