I’m going on a short break to Venice later today. My stress-levels are rising, and I suspect that this is mostly because of a nervousness that I do not know the language and I feel embarrassed to be another Brit abroad trying to communicate in loud English. However, it is also important to take the right stuff with us. Should we take summer clothes, rain clothes, or what? What if I fall in a canal? And yes – I have fallen in a canal before 🙁

The BBC Weather website has been very helpful, inasmuch as it provides a 5-day prediction of the weather in Venice that covers our stay. Unfortunately, the butterfly effect is truly at work, as over the last three days, Friday’s weather alone has cycled from Thunder-and-lightning (with a bit of sun) through to Sunny, and back to Thunder and Lightning with lots of rain. Unfortunately, the rest of our break is currently looking like it will be rainy, despite last night’s raised-hopes when the predictions were Sun, Sun and Sun.

It struck me that, in the ‘old days’ I would not have had these predictions available to me, and as a result, I simply would have had to have taken more stuff (even though, in fact, these predictions are not helping me pack at all!). On the other hand, in ‘the old days’ I would probably have had to have been immensely wealthy to travel abroad, and when I did, I’d probably have gone with a few servants and several trunks, including my favourite crystal decanters of course. Perhaps I betray my middle-class heritage here, but anyway, I’d rather delude myself into thinking that in times past, I might have ‘dressed for dinner’ and all that sort of thing, than associate myself with the idea of traveling in the hold of a ship (a la third class!). We are talking holiday here, after all, not emigrate to a better life!

It seems to me that, in contrast, software has become somewhat bloated, and more likely to taking the equivalent of the kitchen sink on holiday. I don’t really want to get into the argument against bloatware or Microsoft-bash, or anything else… but simply note that the trend in some software recently has been to continuously add features, sometimes at the expense of usability, and frequently making the software less easy-to-get-the-best-of in the short term. Perversely, my experience is also that the enhancements often get in the way of the experienced user who now needs to get past the ‘simplified front end’ to get access to the more advanced features they like to use. I’m thinking of Microsoft Word 2, in which I learnt many of the funky field-codes for bookmarks, tables of contents, table / figure numbering and goodness knows what else, and now I seem strangely unable to figure out in later versions – despite the fact that it is a lot easier to access easier field-codes like filename and path, for example.

Let’s consider bug-control / reporting systems. One example I looked at recently includes an email system so that users can raise problems, analysts and / or testers can test it, confirm it is a problem etc, and programmers can fix it if appropriate. The email is there so that this communication can be ‘on the record’, which is very useful I’m sure. Of course, it also includes links to ‘popular source-code control systems’. Both features make a lot of sense (and in fact, it looked like a great product). But I was concerned by the email at first. The system becomes a whole lot more complicated to install and use. And though I am not clear on this, for the product I am thinking of, does it mean that users now have a ‘normal email’ system (e.g. Outlook, Notes, Yahoo or whatever) and a separate ’email for problem control’? This may be very appropriate for the intended audience… but the trend does make me uncomfortable.

So, we’ll make do with a couple of small backpacks for carry-on, and a small suitcase between two of us. And hope we don’t get soaked every day.