Sunday, October 16, 2011

Saturday, February 20, 2010

It is widely accepted that The Cat In The Hat is a masterpiece due to it's use of language; it has 1629 words but only 236 different ones, and only 15 of these have more than one syllable (more details here). But what most people have overlooked is that, coupled with its sequel, it also predicts the benefits of cloud computing, 50 years before they became a reality. And if anyone is in any doubt about Dr Seuss's credibility on this subject, remember that it was he who made the first printed use of the word "nerd".

As I am sure you know, halfway through the story, The Cat in the Hat fetches a big wooden box...

"I call this game FUN-IN-A-BOX"
Said the cat
"In this box are two things
I will show to you now.
You will like these two things,"
Said the cat with a bow
"I will pick up the hook.
You will see something new.
Two things. And I call them
Thing One and Thing Two"

The Things proceed to wreck the house, flying kites around, etc. Now, at first glance, this looks like a resilient architecture for a house-wrecking system. If one Thing goes wrong, the other Thing can carry on flying the kites. But there is a fundamental scalability problem here. Suppose it were a much larger house, The Cat would need more Things, and more boxes to carry them around in. If he hadn't brought enough boxes with him, the house would remain unwrecked.

Dr Seuss clearly spotted this problem, so by the time of "The Cat In The Hat Comes Back" (or "The Cat In The Hat 2.0" as it should perhaps now be known), he had conceived a more scalable model. A particularly hard-to-shift pink ink stain is causing The Cat some trouble, so he needs additional capacity.

"It is good I have some one
To help me," he said
"Right here in my hat
On the top of my head!
It is good that I have him
Here with me today
He helps me a lot
This is Little Cat A"

Great! Extra capacity on-demand! But it gets better...

"And then Little Cat A
Took the hat of HIS head.
"It is good that I have some one
To help ME" he said.
"This is Little Cat B.
And I keep him about
And when I need help
Then I let him come out"

...and so on all the way up to Little Cat Z

"Z is too small to see
So don't try. You can not
But Z is the cat
Who will clean up that spot"

Infinite, on-demand scalability!

Now, the pedants amongst you might be thinking, "but aren't the cats getting smaller?". Yes, but remember that it is Little Cat Z who actually gets rid of the spot; although the cats are getting smaller, they are getting more powerful. So Dr Seuss also predicted Moore's Law.

A true visionary, I'm sure you'll agree.