Testing For Extreme Conditions from Planck's Constant

One of the most important parts of debugging a software program is to test the limits of input. Making sure the program doesn't crash if you enter zero or one million instead of your real age; that is, testing for the limits of input at the extremes.

When I got married in 1975 I was only programming for a few months and so when my wife and I rented our first apartment I didn't think about testing for extremes. Let me explain: We looked at the apartment in the late afternoon and it seemed like a nice place. The neighborhood was quiet and so we paid our deposit and signed the lease.

A few days later on a cloudless evening, we moved in. After a few hours of arranging the furniture we plopped ourselves into bed and closed our eyes for blessed, peaceful sleep. Then they started. The noises. First came the heavy trucks heading for New York. There was a small depression right in front of the house and every time a truck went over it, there was a huge boom. Then every ten minutes there was the rattling of wood planks as cars crossed the overpass on the side of our house. Every few hours a train would rumble by behind us. If you have ever seen the film My Cousin Vinny [Blu-ray], you'll have some idea of what went on.

In the morning, there were the same trucks but now returning from New York over the same dip in the road. We moved out a few weeks later.

Ten years ago, before we built our home, I checked the neighborhood for noise in the morning, afternoon, evening, deep in the night, on Mondays, Tuesday, you get the idea. I walked around, I checked the parking, I looked up, I listened to make sure we weren't too close to a fire station or police department. I clocked how many cars went by. I listened for noisy dogs, loud music, airplanes flying overhead, etc. I even sniffed around for bad smells - one doesn't want to live near a garbage dump or perfume factory.

I checked early, I checked late - I checked for all extreme limits. I wasn't going to make the same mistakes. Well, the house got built and I live on a near-perfect block. No problem sleeping.

So here's my advice. If you are going to live somewhere new or build something - check it out at night, in the sunlight, from the west, from the east. Before you put something in stone, consider all the possibilities.

Here is an example of a design oversight: