8 ms·

“I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities.

“I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.” General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, probably

neatze 6y ago
Can confirm it is Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, German general, he was an ardent opponent of Hitler and the Nazi regime, according to wiki.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  The Nazis were such a perfect example of his warning.
NLAIWhdj 6y ago
This is a cute quote, especially if one's difficult decisions involve letting other men do the actual work. It does not really apply to software, where most good programmers are obsessive and hard working. Yes, that also applies to Lisp, where someone has to write the actual interpreters and compilers that others use to run their 100 macros on and pontificate how easy everything is.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Nope. Code is liability, I’d rather you not write shit (rhetorically) than write tons of shit (literally).
  - lakiP 6y ago
    No one has talked about quantities here, and general statements like "code is a liability" are usually made by talkers.
    - runawaybottle 6y ago
      Good talkers inevitably sum it down, or good anything usually do. Conciseness can be a product of prolificness too.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
      Ah yes, the famous "talker" Dijkstra...
  - rschneid 6y ago
    Come now, I think we all know code is not its line count. 1000 lines of clear code in a mission-critical place is worth far more than a 1-liner which accomplishes the same task and only one person in the company understands...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - lmm 6y ago
      Citation needed. This is a popular narrative but I don't believe it; line count is the only thing that has been shown to be consistently correlated with bug count.
      - Taek 6y ago
        https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/418878main_FSWC_Final_Report.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/418878main_FSWC_Final_Report.pdf NASA averages something like 0.1 bugs per 1,000 lines of code, industry average is closer to 15. Surely there are other factors, like testing, linting, and language choice that influence the number of bugs.
      - 6y ago
- stanfordkid 6y ago
  It applies to technology organizations though. I think being a smart engineer is very important when making architectural decisions -- but this is not always the bulk of the actual work. Lazy people tend to want to minimize total effort of the organization too.
- MAJwlAL 6y ago
  Typical downvotes: "Hacker" "News", a lot of whom think they are in the "smart and lazy" category, feels that their identity is threatened. Do you all think that Knuth was lazy, too? Delusion.
  - skrebbel 6y ago
    do you make a new account for every comment somehow?
aaronchall 6y ago
"Gilbreth studied the methods of various bricklayers—the poor workmen and the best ones, and he stumbled upon an astonishing fact of great importance and significance. He found that he could learn most from the lazy man!" "Most of the chance improvements in human motions that eliminate unnecessary movement and reduce fatigue have been hit upon, Gilbreth thinks, by men who were lazy—so lazy that every needless step counted.” "Another important thing Gilbreth noted was that the so-called expert factory workers are often the most wasteful of their motions and strength. Because of their energy and ability to work at high speed, such men may be able to produce a large quantity of good work, and thus qualify as experts, but they tire themselves out of all proportion to the amount of work done." - Popular Science, 1920, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/26/lazy-job/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/26/lazy-job/
- agumonkey 6y ago
  I believe life forms are optimizers .. survival means spending the least amount (according to our mental representations but bodies are a major source of data). Then there's lazy and defeated. I'm so not the same as my colleagues who are lazy .. they know what is useless to a point and avoid the work. I have a fundamentally different approach (from computing, food shops and industry). I aim at minimizing work AND maximizing flow. It makes my processes very different because I remap the task and attack many paths to find the most enjoyable one. The other lazies don't dive in the task they just take the simplest path and do it slowly.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  I got an interesting personal education on this working on some volunteer construction projects down in Mexico. The locals all move with a very deliberate slow pace. Us gringos tried to be more gung ho, and by 11 am the heat plus our effort had destroyed us. Meanwhile the local folks just kept on truckin' until sunset.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Sustainable Pace is one of those good buzz-terms to throw around - sure you can be fast, but is it sustainable? It's a good attitude to have in life and work as well - sure, you can do 16 hour binge working days, but for how long can you sustain that? Can you keep that up until retirement, whenever that may be? Is it worth it?

neatze 6y ago

Can confirm it is Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, German general, he was an ardent opponent of Hitler and the Nazi regime, according to wiki.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
The Nazis were such a perfect example of his warning.

NLAIWhdj 6y ago

This is a cute quote, especially if one's difficult decisions involve letting other men do the actual work. It does not really apply to software, where most good programmers are obsessive and hard working. Yes, that also applies to Lisp, where someone has to write the actual interpreters and compilers that others use to run their 100 macros on and pontificate how easy everything is.

runawaybottle 6y ago
Nope. Code is liability, I’d rather you not write shit (rhetorically) than write tons of shit (literally).
- lakiP 6y ago
  No one has talked about quantities here, and general statements like "code is a liability" are usually made by talkers.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    Good talkers inevitably sum it down, or good anything usually do. Conciseness can be a product of prolificness too.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    Ah yes, the famous "talker" Dijkstra...
- rschneid 6y ago
  Come now, I think we all know code is not its line count. 1000 lines of clear code in a mission-critical place is worth far more than a 1-liner which accomplishes the same task and only one person in the company understands...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - lmm 6y ago
    Citation needed. This is a popular narrative but I don't believe it; line count is the only thing that has been shown to be consistently correlated with bug count.
    - Taek 6y ago
      https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/418878main_FSWC_Final_Report.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/418878main_FSWC_Final_Report.pdf NASA averages something like 0.1 bugs per 1,000 lines of code, industry average is closer to 15. Surely there are other factors, like testing, linting, and language choice that influence the number of bugs.
    - 6y ago
stanfordkid 6y ago
It applies to technology organizations though. I think being a smart engineer is very important when making architectural decisions -- but this is not always the bulk of the actual work. Lazy people tend to want to minimize total effort of the organization too.
MAJwlAL 6y ago
Typical downvotes: "Hacker" "News", a lot of whom think they are in the "smart and lazy" category, feels that their identity is threatened. Do you all think that Knuth was lazy, too? Delusion.
- skrebbel 6y ago
  do you make a new account for every comment somehow?

aaronchall 6y ago

"Gilbreth studied the methods of various bricklayers—the poor workmen and the best ones, and he stumbled upon an astonishing fact of great importance and significance. He found that he could learn most from the lazy man!" "Most of the chance improvements in human motions that eliminate unnecessary movement and reduce fatigue have been hit upon, Gilbreth thinks, by men who were lazy—so lazy that every needless step counted.” "Another important thing Gilbreth noted was that the so-called expert factory workers are often the most wasteful of their motions and strength. Because of their energy and ability to work at high speed, such men may be able to produce a large quantity of good work, and thus qualify as experts, but they tire themselves out of all proportion to the amount of work done." - Popular Science, 1920, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/26/lazy-job/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/26/lazy-job/

agumonkey 6y ago
I believe life forms are optimizers .. survival means spending the least amount (according to our mental representations but bodies are a major source of data). Then there's lazy and defeated. I'm so not the same as my colleagues who are lazy .. they know what is useless to a point and avoid the work. I have a fundamentally different approach (from computing, food shops and industry). I aim at minimizing work AND maximizing flow. It makes my processes very different because I remap the task and attack many paths to find the most enjoyable one. The other lazies don't dive in the task they just take the simplest path and do it slowly.
jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
I got an interesting personal education on this working on some volunteer construction projects down in Mexico. The locals all move with a very deliberate slow pace. Us gringos tried to be more gung ho, and by 11 am the heat plus our effort had destroyed us. Meanwhile the local folks just kept on truckin' until sunset.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Sustainable Pace is one of those good buzz-terms to throw around - sure you can be fast, but is it sustainable? It's a good attitude to have in life and work as well - sure, you can do 16 hour binge working days, but for how long can you sustain that? Can you keep that up until retirement, whenever that may be? Is it worth it?