4 ms·

This is a great story. I know its not related but I can't help but feel a sort of analogy to engineering work: the tension between idealism and pragmatism. At

by tyleo 5y ago

This is a great story. I know its not related but I can't help but feel a sort of analogy to engineering work: the tension between idealism and pragmatism. At a previous company our build times for a game client were around 5 minutes or so. Our tools team had planned some work to get this down but it kept getting pushed out. The tools weren't part of the client so I'm not sure they know how bad this was. Anyways, one of the tools engineers rigged up a solution in a day or so that got this down to a minute. Unfortunately it wasn't the nice, perfect, planned solution that kept getting pushed out so they were reprimanded by some manager. Fortunately, more were on the side of the engineer than the manager. To my knowledge they never did end up implementing the planned solution.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
It's totally related. There's the old urban myth about the "NASA Pen,"[0] which is a favorite of tech people (It isn't actually true, but it's a great story). I have a similar apocryphal story that I use in design. I write about it here[1]. > For many years, I have heard stories about some architect – they never say who – that once designed an office park/university campus/government center, etc., and deliberately did not add any paved walkways. Instead, it is said he had the buildings completely surrounded by lawns. After a year, he came back, and paved the areas of these lawns worn thin by people taking the most effective routes around the buildings. He did this because he decided at the start of the project, he’d never be able to account for human nature, and it was his goal to serve the folks using the campus as best as he could. The users of his system would let him know, organically, how to “tune” it so it can best serve them. Also, anyone that is familiar with the Granny Weatherwax character, by Sir Terry Pratchett, may remember that she practiced what was termed "Headology." That was sort of "practical" psychology, and it involved things like giving headless ghosts pumpkins, so they would stop moaning (actually, it was another character that did that -from I Shall Wear Midnight[2], but it was definitely Granny's "Headology"). [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-n... [1] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-traveled-by/#paving https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-travel... [2] https://www.studynovels.com/Page/Story?bookId=27327&pageNo=61 https://www.studynovels.com/Page/Story?bookId=27327&pageNo=6...
- nexuist 5y ago
  There's a subreddit for this: /r/DesirePath
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    Cool! Thanks for that!
- ortusdux 5y ago
  I believe it was the podcast 99% invisible that had an episode about urban planners driving around after a heavy snow and documenting unofficial paths for later development.
milesvp 5y ago
I’m a big fan of these kinds of improvements. They can be a bit dangerous politically though. 5 minutes might be something the manager can get traction to implement a fix to get it below 1 minute build times. At 1 minute the manager may never be able to make a political argument to improve. This may also be why the manager chastised the person fixing this. Such a drastic improvement can completely undermine any efforts to make even bigger fixes, as well as make the manager look foolish that they couldn’t make these improvements already. I tend to believe the perfect is the enemy of good, but I’ve certainly worked in some orgs where I might take an improvement like this to the main champion of the problem first and ask if it’s a useful solution. I might even be willing to shelf the solution if I can be convinced it’s not in the long term best interest of the org. If I’m not, though, I’d likely become a champion of this short term pain relief knowing that things may not ever have much chance to get much better.
Ma8ee 5y ago
Imagine if the nice perfectly planned solution would have gotten the build time down to 5 seconds and been done next month, but it now never would be implemented because 1 minute was considered good enough.
- phkahler 5y ago
  >> but it now never would be implemented because 1 minute was considered good enough. By definition it's good enough. The only thing being lost is the stroking of some ego. Our whole world seems to be built with "good enough" and I do find that frustrating at times. People are imperfect and have finite time, so I understand. Evolution seems to think we're good enough for now.

by tyleo 5y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

It's totally related. There's the old urban myth about the "NASA Pen,"[0] which is a favorite of tech people (It isn't actually true, but it's a great story). I have a similar apocryphal story that I use in design. I write about it here[1]. > For many years, I have heard stories about some architect – they never say who – that once designed an office park/university campus/government center, etc., and deliberately did not add any paved walkways. Instead, it is said he had the buildings completely surrounded by lawns. After a year, he came back, and paved the areas of these lawns worn thin by people taking the most effective routes around the buildings. He did this because he decided at the start of the project, he’d never be able to account for human nature, and it was his goal to serve the folks using the campus as best as he could. The users of his system would let him know, organically, how to “tune” it so it can best serve them. Also, anyone that is familiar with the Granny Weatherwax character, by Sir Terry Pratchett, may remember that she practiced what was termed "Headology." That was sort of "practical" psychology, and it involved things like giving headless ghosts pumpkins, so they would stop moaning (actually, it was another character that did that -from I Shall Wear Midnight[2], but it was definitely Granny's "Headology"). [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-n... [1] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-traveled-by/#paving https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-travel... [2] https://www.studynovels.com/Page/Story?bookId=27327&pageNo=61 https://www.studynovels.com/Page/Story?bookId=27327&pageNo=6...

nexuist 5y ago
There's a subreddit for this: /r/DesirePath
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Cool! Thanks for that!
ortusdux 5y ago
I believe it was the podcast 99% invisible that had an episode about urban planners driving around after a heavy snow and documenting unofficial paths for later development.

milesvp 5y ago

I’m a big fan of these kinds of improvements. They can be a bit dangerous politically though. 5 minutes might be something the manager can get traction to implement a fix to get it below 1 minute build times. At 1 minute the manager may never be able to make a political argument to improve. This may also be why the manager chastised the person fixing this. Such a drastic improvement can completely undermine any efforts to make even bigger fixes, as well as make the manager look foolish that they couldn’t make these improvements already. I tend to believe the perfect is the enemy of good, but I’ve certainly worked in some orgs where I might take an improvement like this to the main champion of the problem first and ask if it’s a useful solution. I might even be willing to shelf the solution if I can be convinced it’s not in the long term best interest of the org. If I’m not, though, I’d likely become a champion of this short term pain relief knowing that things may not ever have much chance to get much better.

Ma8ee 5y ago

Imagine if the nice perfectly planned solution would have gotten the build time down to 5 seconds and been done next month, but it now never would be implemented because 1 minute was considered good enough.

phkahler 5y ago
>> but it now never would be implemented because 1 minute was considered good enough. By definition it's good enough. The only thing being lost is the stroking of some ego. Our whole world seems to be built with "good enough" and I do find that frustrating at times. People are imperfect and have finite time, so I understand. Evolution seems to think we're good enough for now.