Rule #3, you are NOT ALLOWED to read the video description (it's complicated).
I thought it would be fun to see how fast I could turn out a parody song. I have heard Complicated on the radio (not recently), and have long thought it was ripe for parody. It went from downloading the sheet music on 2024/04/21 to released video on 2024/04/27, so not too shabby by my standards. musx file lives at https://bit.ly/4baLA8f.
Upgrader is a piece of software I work with that upgrades a complex system of software components. The version structure is nonlinear, called version graph, which is sometimes a source of errors in testing, although those are usually easily addressed. One component is the Red Gate CLI for updating SQL Server databases, another potential source of errors.
The song remarks on some software phenomena:
1. A piece of software may work fine and debug easily on the coder's machine but run into unforeseen problems in more practical applications.
2. End users are sometimes button-pushers that perform very complex tasks they do not understand by pushing a button (and have limited ability to respond if things go awry). End users also may perform awkward kludges when things don't work that may make things worse. This phenomenon isn't tied to level of technical skill, anyone using software can be button-pushers and kludgers, and the more technical skill you have the more damage you can do.
The song overplays the instability of Upgrader, but it can be difficult to deal with for all involved when it goes wrong, and even when things are in working order it is still slow.
At the end I'm yelling at both the misbehaving software and the kludging end users, although in reality the coders often can do better in terms of documentation and better error handling.
The song analogizes the coding process where you fall (make mistakes), brawl (sometimes it feels like a fight to get the code to do what you want), and break (we try but introducing errors is inevitable).
I prefer to punctuate the prepositional phrase ending "You fall, and you crawl, and you break, and you turn it into." (in both the original and parody versions) as an uncommon case where a prepositional phrase doesn't need an object. What the code (or a relationship) turns into is more-or-less up to you.
Upgrader is literally a tool (instrument, device) but it also works as an instrument of The Man, as its behavior is governed by business requirements, which relatively unambiguously explains why it is so complicated.
Previous Video (#6): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5axgUawYohI
Next Video (#8): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6YRrMbga-M
Transcript and Director's Commentary: https://bit.ly/4bb0Guo
https://destroyallpugz.site