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Most of the story isn't about that. If that's the center of the story, then the first half of it is merely going off on a tangent. It's a badly-composed story

Most of the story isn't about that. If that's the center of the story, then the first half of it is merely going off on a tangent. It's a badly-composed story. Nor do we need more "I told the programmer we needed this thing he said was problematic and he did it" management just-so stories.

mryall 16y ago
> Nor do we need more "I told the programmer we needed this thing he said was problematic and he did it" management just-so stories. Why would that be? Is this a kind of story you disagree with for some reason? Are you arguing that it's a bad story because it's badly composed or because you don't like the theme? This story wasn't written by the manager in question, so I also don't see how you can personify the author in the first person in your pseudo-quote.
- Semiapies 16y ago
  In order: because I think they're harmful, yes, and as I stated, both. Also, I was not personifying the author.
philwelch 16y ago
Showing how clever the oval algorithm was gives us the right emotional setup to the conflict--Atkinson is justly proud of his own cleverness until Jobs, almost dismissively, demands even more from him. The central conflict of the story isn't between Atkinson and the problem, it's between Atkinson and Jobs, and the story holds itself to the emotionally salient facts about how that conflict is resolved--the rounded rectangles work and Atkinson is again very proud and happy. Well, either that or Hertzfeld never got around to learning how roundrects were implemented. I get your complaint, because that's not the conflict you wanted the story to center around, but given the conflict it does center around, I don't think it's that poorly composed.
- Semiapies 16y ago
  Well, I'd rather the story center more firmly around the Atkinson/Jobs conflict or the whole sweep of Atkinson going from clever hack to being convinced about the rounded rectangles to figuring them out as well. I don't need to know the math to appreciate the trickiness of making quick ovals on Lisa hardware, but if we're going into that, I want to know how he worked out the roundrects as well.

mryall 16y ago

> Nor do we need more "I told the programmer we needed this thing he said was problematic and he did it" management just-so stories. Why would that be? Is this a kind of story you disagree with for some reason? Are you arguing that it's a bad story because it's badly composed or because you don't like the theme? This story wasn't written by the manager in question, so I also don't see how you can personify the author in the first person in your pseudo-quote.

Semiapies 16y ago
In order: because I think they're harmful, yes, and as I stated, both. Also, I was not personifying the author.

philwelch 16y ago

Showing how clever the oval algorithm was gives us the right emotional setup to the conflict--Atkinson is justly proud of his own cleverness until Jobs, almost dismissively, demands even more from him. The central conflict of the story isn't between Atkinson and the problem, it's between Atkinson and Jobs, and the story holds itself to the emotionally salient facts about how that conflict is resolved--the rounded rectangles work and Atkinson is again very proud and happy. Well, either that or Hertzfeld never got around to learning how roundrects were implemented. I get your complaint, because that's not the conflict you wanted the story to center around, but given the conflict it does center around, I don't think it's that poorly composed.

Semiapies 16y ago
Well, I'd rather the story center more firmly around the Atkinson/Jobs conflict or the whole sweep of Atkinson going from clever hack to being convinced about the rounded rectangles to figuring them out as well. I don't need to know the math to appreciate the trickiness of making quick ovals on Lisa hardware, but if we're going into that, I want to know how he worked out the roundrects as well.