6 ms·
Kiiiinnnnda. People make bad decisions, and the only architecture that matters is the one that lets you change. It's like the dig-once fiber policy for roadways
by RangerScience 10y ago
Kiiiinnnnda. People make bad decisions, and the only architecture that matters is the one that lets you change. It's like the dig-once fiber policy for roadways, and is all part of the "don't build to peak value" idea; it's also like a usual problem with user interface design: if you only ever built user tools to do what you imagined, users (or later owners / tenants) are limited to your imagination.
I go to a gym in an office building; there are showers. Do you think the floor was built with anyone thinking: "Oh, one day there might be showers here!"?
I worked at a company with a (big) 3d printer - we had to rinse part afterwards, and kinda managed to wedge the rinser into the (extra extra large) handicapped stall in the men's bathroom.
Don't just build to what YOU can imagine, give people rope to make more things.
Running unused water lines [while it's cheap to do so] sounds like a good plan.
On the other hand, future proofing, and enough rope to hang yourself.
- djrogers 10y ago> Kiiiinnnnda. People make bad decisions You can't outlaw bad decisions - but it seems that some people will never get tired of trying...
- marcosdumay 10y agoConstruction codes are all about outlawing bad decisions. Of course, those are "bad" decisions that save a few penny from the builders, and stay hidden until they surprise the building owner with a huge unpredictable cost. No water lines to urinals fits that descriptions nicely.
- brudgers 10y agoAs they say: Built to code == the worst construction that is legal
- btschaegg 10y ago> Of course, those are "bad" decisions that save a few penny from the builders, and stay hidden until they surprise the building owner with a huge unpredictable cost. Another case in point: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0UG0H720160102 http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0UG0H720160102
- Retra 10y agoYou can outlaw bad decisions. That's the whole point of laws.
- viraptor 10y agoI thought law is about forbidding harmful decisions, not bad ones? (At least in theory) Most of the stupid things you do to yourself, without affecting others are not regulated.
- Retra 10y agoBad decisions are bad because they are harmful. And most stupid things you do to yourself do affect others, and they are regulated according to the significance of the damage, not merely predicated on its existence.
- viraptor 10y agoI specifically qualified with not affecting others, because otherwise that would be a different discussion. Yet...
- Retra 10y agoYet we still find some reason to regulate just about everything, because people are pretty creative about finding ways to pass the consequences of their bad decisions onto other people. I don't know real estate developers to be any sort of exception, do you?
- CPLX 10y agoIn an optimal world, those would be the only kinds of decisions we would outlaw.
- fiter 10y agoI think this is a business decision. Some building developers will reap the reward if it was a good decision, others will suffer the consequence.
- kelnos 10y agoDig-once policy for roadways makes sense because the roadway is a public good, and digging multiple times would cause problems for the public, and would cost more for the public, so the _public_ is well within its rights to require this policy. Requiring a water line in a building is not the same thing. It's a private building, and the people who own it are well within their rights to decide to risk later disruption and cost if they need water lines. Legislating away that right is insanity and just make-work that costs the building owner money up-front for something they've decided they don't need.
- btschaegg 10y agoI can actually see this effect in my flat. I live in a fairly old building; it's been renovated and I really like it, but the location of the power plugs is the same as when it was constructed (except for one room in my flat). This means each socket is located at the entry of the respective room - the result being that I have extension cords all over the place. I especially find this interesting since this means the pattern of power consumption by "normal people" must have shifted drastically in the last 60-100 years. On another note, the obvious parallels to software engineering tasks seem very interesting. This shows that ideas like YAGNI very much depend on a cost-benefit-calculation that's very dependend on variables like scale and the anticipated cost of changes.