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> People use tenets for everything at AWS What is with all the cult/religious/military terminology turning up in software development these days? Squad, ritual

> People use tenets for everything at AWS What is with all the cult/religious/military terminology turning up in software development these days? Squad, ritual, tenet; one day management will be asking us to remember to bring in our robes for the Thursday morning sacrifice...

whateveracct 6y ago
Corporations are inherently stupid. The social & political mechanisms within make the employees stupid as well (while acting as employees), so they turn to rules & folksy truisms as a heuristic to wrangle that stupidity and get the mob to advance the corporation's interests.
- yikesshescute 6y ago
  > Corporations are inherently stupid. Is it that groups of people are inherently stupid, or is there some facet of corporations that makes them in particular stupid?
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    An individual person will act to the best of their ability. A group of people at bare minimum has to pay communication costs, and so will act to less than the best of the ability of its members. Furthermore, since dysfunctional organizations aren't quickly removed, the reality is usually a lot worse than the ideal. Depending on how much slack there is in the arena of competition there can be almost no limit on how dysfunctional small pockets, or even large slices, of the organization can become without leading to the death of the host.
    - enioarda 6y ago
      Does that not leave out synergetic effects? While communication costs, it could also reward?
      - whatshisface 6y ago
        The organization might "know" more about subject A and subject B together than expert A or B, but it will "know" less about subject A than expert A and subject B than expert B.
        yikesshescute 6y ago
        What about subjects like “building rockets that are moon-capable”? All experts know negligible amounts about this subject, but organizations have “sufficient” knowledge.
        whatshisface 6y ago
        That's essentially half my point. The organization might be passable at "building rockets that are moon-capable," but it's going to be worse at each individual specialized task than the individual experts that make it up. One of the C programmers is likely to look at the architecture of the control system and think "that's a dumb way to architect a control system," and he'll probably be right. The same will be true for every subsystem, and even the integrated assembly. However unless someone figures out how to reduce communication costs, that's the best anyone can do; the alternative would be to have a great control system with no rocket.
        yikesshescute 6y ago
        Is the implication that a company can spend more time and money to get each subsystem to subsystem-expert-acceptance level, or is there something about current organizational practice that makes even this impossible?
        whatshisface 6y ago
        Imagine two experts advising a leader. They're not going to fully communicate all of their expertise to him, so his decisions on topic A will probably be worse than expert A, and likewise for topic/expert B. He's going to make better decisions on joint A+B tasks that require combined and balanced knowledge, but both experts will (not incorrectly) see him as "not knowing as much about A/B as I do." You can substitute the individual leader for a group whose consensus must be obtained and get another parable illustrating the same principle.
  - whateveracct 6y ago
    Not all groups, but corporations are groups with * hierarchy * competition between people in the same tier of the hierarchy * opposing incentives throughout the hierarchy (company aims to maximize employee labor and minimize employee compensation and; employees minimize their labor and maximize their compensation) Left alone, this results in a lot of the stupidity, and that's why "building culture" is so important - a good company culture transcends this perverse base nature.
    - yikesshescute 6y ago
      What are the specifics of a culture that transcends these organizational hazards? How does it work?
eitland 6y ago
I remember one consultant in 2009 describing how they had a toy chicken that they used to sacrifice by chopping off its head before VMware upgrades back when VMWare was new. (They would then sew the head back on so the sacrificial chicken would be ready for next time.) My point is: I guess this is nothing new.
- TheGrassyKnoll 6y ago
  Up one for the toy chicken (I'm thinking rubber chicken).
  - pygy_ 6y ago
    ... with a pulley in the middle? High voodoo you’re playing with here...
sgift 6y ago
Maybe it's because English is my second language, but tenet is to me just another word for principle or axiom? Nothing cult/religious/military about it?
- EamonnMR 6y ago
  Native English speaker, no extra connotations that I recognize.
  - karmakaze 6y ago
    Google'd: ten·et /ˈtenət/ noun a principle or belief, especially one of the main principles of a religion or philosophy. "the tenets of a democratic society"
geodel 6y ago
Indeed. As person suffering from endless agile bullshitery scrums, stories, sprints, and crap. I now have to keep a lookup table for normal names in my mind as every fucking thing has a "code/cool" name. So QA/UAT/Prod environment are now "Audi/BMW/Tesla" environment at work.
cle 6y ago
Groups of people can communicate more effectively if they agree upon common terminologies and definitions.
zwieback 6y ago
Where I work our internal code names are all Star Wars/Trek or Hitchhiker through the Galaxy. I always push for something like "flowers" or "trees" to no avail. Be interesting to collect data on how these trends change over time.

whateveracct 6y ago

Corporations are inherently stupid. The social & political mechanisms within make the employees stupid as well (while acting as employees), so they turn to rules & folksy truisms as a heuristic to wrangle that stupidity and get the mob to advance the corporation's interests.

yikesshescute 6y ago
> Corporations are inherently stupid. Is it that groups of people are inherently stupid, or is there some facet of corporations that makes them in particular stupid?
- whatshisface 6y ago
  An individual person will act to the best of their ability. A group of people at bare minimum has to pay communication costs, and so will act to less than the best of the ability of its members. Furthermore, since dysfunctional organizations aren't quickly removed, the reality is usually a lot worse than the ideal. Depending on how much slack there is in the arena of competition there can be almost no limit on how dysfunctional small pockets, or even large slices, of the organization can become without leading to the death of the host.
  - enioarda 6y ago
    Does that not leave out synergetic effects? While communication costs, it could also reward?
    - whatshisface 6y ago
      The organization might "know" more about subject A and subject B together than expert A or B, but it will "know" less about subject A than expert A and subject B than expert B.
      - yikesshescute 6y ago
        What about subjects like “building rockets that are moon-capable”? All experts know negligible amounts about this subject, but organizations have “sufficient” knowledge.
        whatshisface 6y ago
        That's essentially half my point. The organization might be passable at "building rockets that are moon-capable," but it's going to be worse at each individual specialized task than the individual experts that make it up. One of the C programmers is likely to look at the architecture of the control system and think "that's a dumb way to architect a control system," and he'll probably be right. The same will be true for every subsystem, and even the integrated assembly. However unless someone figures out how to reduce communication costs, that's the best anyone can do; the alternative would be to have a great control system with no rocket.
        yikesshescute 6y ago
        Is the implication that a company can spend more time and money to get each subsystem to subsystem-expert-acceptance level, or is there something about current organizational practice that makes even this impossible?
        whatshisface 6y ago
        Imagine two experts advising a leader. They're not going to fully communicate all of their expertise to him, so his decisions on topic A will probably be worse than expert A, and likewise for topic/expert B. He's going to make better decisions on joint A+B tasks that require combined and balanced knowledge, but both experts will (not incorrectly) see him as "not knowing as much about A/B as I do." You can substitute the individual leader for a group whose consensus must be obtained and get another parable illustrating the same principle.
- whateveracct 6y ago
  Not all groups, but corporations are groups with * hierarchy * competition between people in the same tier of the hierarchy * opposing incentives throughout the hierarchy (company aims to maximize employee labor and minimize employee compensation and; employees minimize their labor and maximize their compensation) Left alone, this results in a lot of the stupidity, and that's why "building culture" is so important - a good company culture transcends this perverse base nature.
  - yikesshescute 6y ago
    What are the specifics of a culture that transcends these organizational hazards? How does it work?

eitland 6y ago

I remember one consultant in 2009 describing how they had a toy chicken that they used to sacrifice by chopping off its head before VMware upgrades back when VMWare was new. (They would then sew the head back on so the sacrificial chicken would be ready for next time.) My point is: I guess this is nothing new.

TheGrassyKnoll 6y ago
Up one for the toy chicken (I'm thinking rubber chicken).
- pygy_ 6y ago
  ... with a pulley in the middle? High voodoo you’re playing with here...

sgift 6y ago

Maybe it's because English is my second language, but tenet is to me just another word for principle or axiom? Nothing cult/religious/military about it?

EamonnMR 6y ago
Native English speaker, no extra connotations that I recognize.
- karmakaze 6y ago
  Google'd: ten·et /ˈtenət/ noun a principle or belief, especially one of the main principles of a religion or philosophy. "the tenets of a democratic society"

geodel 6y ago

Indeed. As person suffering from endless agile bullshitery scrums, stories, sprints, and crap. I now have to keep a lookup table for normal names in my mind as every fucking thing has a "code/cool" name. So QA/UAT/Prod environment are now "Audi/BMW/Tesla" environment at work.

cle 6y ago

Groups of people can communicate more effectively if they agree upon common terminologies and definitions.

zwieback 6y ago

Where I work our internal code names are all Star Wars/Trek or Hitchhiker through the Galaxy. I always push for something like "flowers" or "trees" to no avail. Be interesting to collect data on how these trends change over time.