Whenever you think hard about the goings on at Launceston's Town Hall you tend to want excuses for doing something nice.

In looking for a system in the bureaucratic world that is less effective and in regard to getting stuff done you inevitably find yourself asking, "How in GOD's world can this be?"

This is a worrying question to be asking about as only a small part of the overall puzzle. People are startled when it is mentioned, particularly programmers, who tend to see themselves as the centre of the systems universe not unlike corporate executives.

One can counter by asking, "What exactly does a programmer do?" or indeed "What indeed does a executive manager do?" After much discussion, we might end up with the same answer, "a programmer/manager takes human understandable specifications and converts it to a machine/person executable program, either by writing and compiling source code or sending out memos often through some interpreter capable of generating the program or implementing a money gathering process."

This, in turn, leads to an interesting discussion as to what is meant by "requirements" – it seems everyone has their own spin on this. More importantly, it leads to a discussion as to what exactly a system/process/protocol is.

If one is to follow this by posing the question, "How many programs make up a system? One? Two? Three? Is a suite of programs a system?"

Again, after much discussion it might be concluded that there is no finite number of programs in a system, it is as many as satisfies the system's needs – and again we're back to "requirements" or compliance.

One finally asks if a system can be implemented without computer assistance – without programs or without compliance. The programmers typically balk at this one, but grudgingly admit an information system can be implemented manually or through the use of other equipment.

Actually, information systems have been used for hundreds of years, well before the advent of the computer. As one of our more famous Bryce's Laws points out, "The first on-line, real-time, interactive, data base system was double-entry bookkeeping which was developed by the merchants of Venice in 1200 A.D."

In other words, computer programming is but one way to implement an information system, or ca fiscal compliance system, but certainly not the only way.

This premise implies information systems and management structures where many are much larger in scope than programming, and that systems have two dimensions, a logical side and a physical side.

The logical side defines the various business processes comprising the system – aka, "sub-systems".

Thus processes can be implemented through manual processing, use of other equipment, with computer assistance, or combinations of all three. Even client/constituency engagement works in the 21st C.

Physical processing changes more dynamically than the logical simply because technology changes.

Then come 'VALUE SYSTEMS' and protocols that tend to exist in 'management' in order that they can be ignored.