“A dev walks into a bar,” says Cranmore developer Erin MacDonald.
“Then crawls in, dances in, and walks in backwards. He orders a beer, two beers, then 9,999. He asks for it in a glass, a cup, then a shoe.
“A customer then walks into the bar’s bathroom and the bar explodes.”
We’re confused by Erin’s joke, but he’s trying to describe how he sees code, how he is capable of extraordinary focus on complex problems, and how he has devoted himself to a single project since 2022.
A University of Ulster graduate in computer science and a tech-obsessive (he’s wielding a flashy electronic notepad during our chat), Erin grins when asked if he was always destined to be a dev.
“In primary school we had to make a thing out of Play-Doh,” he says. “I made a little Play-Doh computer.”
He would have to wait a while before getting his hands on the real thing, time spent dismantling his mother’s camera and any other electronics he could find.
When his first home computer eventually arrived in 2008 – a bulky number with an old CRT monitor – he “bricked” it within days.
“I was poring through all the settings and options and turned the resolution down to zero and that broke it,” he explains.
But that’s Erin’s way of doing things. He pokes and prods and explores every cranny, trying to understand it, trying to figure it out.
It’s the same approach he takes when playing Role Playing Games, even his guitar playing – his thrash metal-style axe is connected to a network of precision-tuned plugins and even an AI-equipped guitar pedal.
“AI and neural networks were always an interest of mine,” he says, before talking through his remarkable Final Year project. It involved training a sophisticated AI to check CT scans for signs of Covid-19.
But today Erin’s focus is solely on the work he carries out for the Driving and Vehicle Licensing agency, managing the Cranmore software that facilitates their complex compliance and enforcement activities.
“Basically, I have been working on the project for so long – since early 2022 – that I know the quirks of the system. I’ve built up a repertoire with it. I know how the whole engine works.”
Where can the user go, what are you allowing to happen?
Erin MacDonald
And keeping that engine going has become his pet project, absorbing his focus as he pokes and prods.
So it’s that view of the code we return to.
“At the end of the day it’s just data,” he says. “That’s my understanding of it… just moving from point A to point B.
“But you have to think what possibilities there are,” he says. “Where can the user go, what are you allowing to happen?
“If the user can do it, they will do it. So, you have to account for that, think ahead, think of everything they could do.”
Erin goes back to his problem, exploring the crannies, poking and prodding, considering all eventualities, mindful of all the lessons he’s learnt.
We realise he’s the reason nothing has exploded.
And, quite suddenly, we get the joke.
