Note that the events depicted in this song are all completely accurate. The director of admissions at St. Mark's School in Southborough MA back in the early 80s was named John Templeton. I was hired by Jim Williamson in 1980 as part of the Williamson Group, a software firm in Cambridge. John used to sometimes tell me that he did not want me to fix certain problems because of the potential negative side effects. I starting using the phrase TEMPLETON EFFECT for what others call the LAW OF UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCES. Later in the 80s, John left St. Mark's and is now down in Princeton NJ at the
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs as a dean of
graduate admissions
. Prior to 1999, I had not seen John nor talked to him since the early 80s. Since 1999, I have now seen John twice, gave him a copy of the CD and the Summercore Primer where we have published the song and visited his office! He is slowly realizing how many people in Massachusetts now use the phrase TEMPLETON EFFECT casually many times per week, since the LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES pervades the world of computers!
The head of admissions, John Templeton was his name
Liked most of the features with little to blame
But he kept a small notebook with bugs he would find
And then made the mistake of asking me to fix them if I had time
I'd fix each of the bugs and show them proudly to the team
But sometimes months later I would hear John T scream
I can live with the bugs don't think I'm lazy
But these unexpected consequences are just driving me crazy
You upgrade your software and you're thrilled when itıs done
Until the next week when you find something wonıt run
It's too late to go back, you feel you've been decked
Just one more poor victim of the Templeton effect
Hundreds of programs are being fixed now each day
As the world keeps the count down for January Y2K
But the real Y2K problems as we will all see
Will be fixing the Templeton effects for the next century
It hits you unexpectedly like a pain in the neck
And that's why I call it the Templeton effect
It doesnıt happen often, but when it does, you will moan
That you really should have left good enough alone
In our C++ course, we thought it would be cool
To create a common conference and gateway with another school
Six months later when our First Class was almost wrecked
We realized we were victims of yet another Templeton effect
We upgraded our First Class software, cause our gateway wasn't running well
But things got worse after the upgrade, it was now the gateway from hell
We named it CerberusCharon and bought our first NT
Templeton effects were solved this time by our young techie named Slawsby
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