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I've heard the term "yak shaving" before but the meaning escapes me - can anybody fill me in?
by mark-r 9y ago
I've heard the term "yak shaving" before but the meaning escapes me - can anybody fill me in?
- lisper 9y agoIt's the result of an internal monologue that goes something like, "I want to do X, and the best way to do it is to use this spiffy new feature Y, but in order to access that I need to upgrade P and Q and R, and while I'm at it I may as well also take care of A and B and C..." and at the end of this process you find yourself shaving a yak, having completely forgotten about what it was you originally set out to do.
- majewsky 9y ago> Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing you to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows you to solve a larger problem. Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving Like when you have to spend hours fiddling with $package_manager because you want to build a $hipster_language app.
- cfv 9y agoCarlin Vieri, a googler, coined the term while at MIT. " 1) Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing you to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows you to solve a larger problem. 2) A less useful activity done consciously or subconsciously to procrastinate about a larger but more useful task. "
- PeterisP 9y agoWatch this gif https://imgur.com/gallery/rQIb4Vw https://imgur.com/gallery/rQIb4Vw , and at the scene of car with the engine taken out imagine shaving a yak. But the original story, as far as I know, comes from Seth Godin http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/03/dont_shave_that.html http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/03/dont_shave_t...
- mark-r 9y agoAh, Malcolm in the Middle - how I miss it. I think that was about the time I stopped watching TV.