Nostradamus the technical writer

by Geoff Hart

Previously published as: Hart, G.J. 2002. Nostradamus the technical writer. http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/magazine/humor/nostradamus.html

Sue Gallagher, a longtime technical writer, once posed the following riddle: "How are science fiction writers like technical writers?” The answer, of course, is that both professions write about things we imagine will happen in the future, but that often don’t—as anyone who’s documented software or hardware for a startup company can confirm. With the new millennium arriving at the end of 2001, I find my thoughts turning to a different form of science fiction: eschatology, the art of predicting the future. It occurs to me that the role of technical writer as prognosticator has a proud history, and one that dates back to the days of Nostradamus the Prophet, one of the most famous eschatologists.

Nostradamus a technical writer? Surely I jest?

Nope. There are so many parallels it’s a wonder nobody ever commented on this similarity before. For example, lacking clear or definitive product specifications (in Michel de Nostradame’s case, for the future) or access to the designer (okay... the Designer), he still managed to phrase things so clearly—yet so obscurely—that his user manuals for the coming years could be cheerfully interpreted in any way that worked for the reader. Would that we could be consistently that good in our usual work!

As well, Michel wrote in French, thereby encountering the same localization problems many of us now face, including the risk of losing something in translation. A few choice examples:

“Alone at night in secret study, placed on the brass tripod, light flame emerges from the emptiness”: Replace “brass” with “silicon” and you have the technical writer on deadline, chained to a PC, with the screen illuminating the sleepless darkness throughout the night.
“A long, drawn-out fight [in which] the countryside will be grievously troubled”: Microsoft versus the U.S. Department of Justice over perceived monopolistic practices.
“A treacherous man, quickly raised from low to high estate, rules briefly but suddenly turns disloyal and volatile”: The dramatic reversal of fortune for inexperienced owners of dot-com empires who watched helplessly as paper fortunes vanished overnight.
“The enslaved populace sings, chants, and demands, while Princes and Lords are held captive”: The ascent of Windows, which has imprisoned computer support staff in their offices as they strive in vain to keep our computers and networks running.
“The clergy will be both exalted and reviled by those who wish to learn nothing”: If we’re the ones who interpret the scriptures for the developers (the “high priests of technology”), then this neatly describes the readers who would rather just use the darned product than deal with our documentation.
“For 40 years the rainbow will not be seen [then] it will be seen everyday”: Given that dates and times were always somewhat vague in older writing, 40 years could easily be an exaggeration of 4 years; in that context, the resurgence of Apple, whose colorful logo uses the image of the rainbow, is clearly predicted: the company once seemed on the point of vanishing, but is now seen everywhere.
“A thing existing without any sense[s] will bring about its own end”: Computer software that self-destructs daily or is brought low by viruses. Bonus alternative explanation: Microsoft retires the much-reviled Clippy the Paperclip from MS Office’s online help, a few years after discontinuing Microsoft Bob, having failed to recognize that such ill-considered efforts inevitably bring about their own demise.
“The fish that travels over both land and sea is cast up onto the shore by a great wave”: Microsoft trying to rule both the desktop and portable devices via Windows will prove to be an exercise in futility.
“After twenty years of the Moon's reign have passed, another will take up his reign for 7000 years, when the exhausted Sun takes up his cycle”: Nearly 20 years after the advent of MS-DOS and Windows, will Sun finally use Java or Linux to knock off Microsoft? [A look back from 2005: That should, of course, be Solaris, not Linux.—GH]
“Great changes will occur, dreadful horrors and vengeances, for as the moon is led by its angel, the heavens draw near to the Balance”: The eternal struggle of the technical writer against last-minute software changes as we approach the shipping deadline.
“…A man called by a barbaric name... will speak to a great people in words and deeds, and will have more fame and renown than any other man”: Who else could this refer to but Bill “barbarians at the” Gates?

All this being said, the skeptic might suggest that Nostradamus was really practicing escatology, not eschatology, and that this simple typo is more than a coincidence. Considerable credibility is given to this hypothesis by the fact that writers were considerably sloppier about spelling in the good ol' days before spell checkers, so perhaps Nostradamus was really writing for Intercom’s Witful Thinking column and his irony simply escaped the notice of his contemporaries. Me? I’m too skeptical to think he was serious. As the bank manager robbed by a tarot-reading employee was later heard to complain, “I shoulda known: never trust an eschatologist to be your fortune's teller.”