4everinbeta is a nom de plume for me to express my thoughts on various subjects. Mostly technical, but not always. The title explains my philosophy of life in general. I will never be done. I’m constantly tweaking. Adding new features. Removing others that are no-longer useful. And, just like any beta product, I am chock-full of defects. This is reinforced everyday with my interaction with others. (My wife and child inform me of new defects everyday!) It is the other individuals in my life and my interactions with them both personally and virtually that uncover these defects. It’s my responsibility to track these defects and strive to fix them.

In my personal bug-tracking system I have several classifications as outlined here:

• Sev1 – A complete show-stopper. If I encounter some aspect of my personality or behavior that intentionally or inadvertently results in physical, mental, emotional or other harm to another, I must take immediate action to resolve this. This is inexcusable.
• Sev2 – If something that I do prevents myself or another from making progress toward a goal or aspiration, I must take corrective action as soon as possible. Blocking an individuals progress in life happens more than you may realize. When I realize I have perpetrated such an act, I take it upon myself to not only prevent it from happening again, but attempt to rectify any harm it may have already done. (Although this is often not possible)
• Sev3 – This is some defect that may slow progress toward a goal or aspiration but does not cause that progress to come to a full-stop. Get to it as soon as you can reasonably. But keep your eyes on the goal.
• Sev4/5 – Just annoying to myself or others. I’ll try to work on these because I really don’t want to annoy you. But, if I don’t fix it, deal with it. 😀

As you can tell from this list, “Do no harm” is an admirable goal in all aspects of life that I personally ascribe to. (And I feel the world would be a better place if that was just a part of the collective human psyche.) That said, you cannot focus entirely on your defects. You must keep growing. Pushing your boundaries beyond your comfort zone. Only by doing-so can an individual reach their full potential. As a direct result of this, you are inevitably going to make mistakes. And defects are going to be added to your tracker. But that is ok. Personally, I feel that at the end of my life I will be happy if my defect list is free of sev1 defects. And ecstatic if I have managed to eliminate all but the 4’s and 5’s. (Sorry folks!)