Turtles all the way down

Dec 18, 2013

It’s a common pattern in IT: recursion, where a pointer for what to do next brings you back to where you already are. Of course, there’s recursion in programming:

Procedure DoSomething(a)
{
  DoSomething(a.child);
}

But it occurs elsewhere. One of the most frustrating is when you are troubleshooting some network problem, and the instructions end up saying:

“To solve this problem, contact your network administrator”

Err, I am the network administrator, and I already consulted myself….

This is called Turtles all the way down (see!).

Well, today, I’ve found a new form of it. I’m reviewing a clinical document, and the example medication instructions in the patient advice reads:

“Use as directed by the Doctor in your notes”