Data Pipeline
Data Pipeline
[Cueball is standing with an open laptop, showing it to Ponytail and White Hat.] Cueball: Check it out - I made a full automated data pipeline that collects and processes all the information we need.
[Ponytail is looking down at Cueball's laptop.] Ponytail: Is it a giant house of cards built from random scripts that will all completely collapse the moment any input does anything weird?
[Borderless beat panel]
[Cueball looks at his laptop.] Cueball: It... might not be. Ponytail: I guess that's someth- Cueball: Whoops, just collapsed. Hang on, I can patch it.

In the first panel Cueball shows Ponytail and White Hat a Data Pipeline he has constructed that, as he puts it, 'collects and processes all the data we need'. This implies that the three are running some sort of project that requires data processing. Ponytail assumes that this data pipeline is an unstable mess of scripts that will cease to function correctly should any unexpected input be received. Cueball tries to claim it isn't, but his hesitation (including using the word "might") essentially states that this is very likely, although he seems to hope that it might not be. Ponytail then seems impressed and expresses this to him. She, however, gets interrupted by Cueball who tells her that the system just malfunctioned and collapsed. He, however, states that he can fix it, making it seem like this cycle of patching and collapsing could repeat infinitely, or until all problems have been patched. Knowing Cueball's code, though, it seems more likely he can't patch it.
In the title text, Ponytail or White Hat proceeds to question how such an important system can run on such a small computer. However, Cueball makes it worse by saying he uses his phone due to the better connection. While this might give the pipeline more uptime, it also means its system resources are far more limited.
This comic can be logically connected to the Code Quality series ( 1513: Code Quality , 1695: Code Quality 2 and 1833: Code Quality 3 ), similarly showing Cueball having a coding ineptitude and Ponytail's exasperation with it, though this Cueball shows a higher level of competence by having produced something useful, albeit fragile. However, Ponytail doesn't see the actual code in this case, and there's no issues with or comments on coding syntax like in the Code Quality series.
Cueball's hesitant response in this comic has some similarities to 410: Math Paper .
[Cueball is standing with an open laptop, showing it to Ponytail and White Hat.] Cueball: Check it out - I made a full automated data pipeline that collects and processes all the information we need.
[Ponytail is looking down at Cueball's laptop.] Ponytail: Is it a giant house of cards built from random scripts that will all completely collapse the moment any input does anything weird?
[Borderless beat panel]
[Cueball looks at his laptop.] Cueball: It... might not be. Ponytail: I guess that's someth- Cueball: Whoops, just collapsed. Hang on, I can patch it.
