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You picked a bad metaphor, eh? > The primary cause of this discrepancy was that one piece of ground software supplied by Lockheed Martin produced results in a

You picked a bad metaphor, eh? > The primary cause of this discrepancy was that one piece of ground software supplied by Lockheed Martin produced results in a United States customary unit, contrary to its Software Interface Specification (SIS), while a second system, supplied by NASA, expected those results to be in SI units, in accordance with the SIS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_... It's hardly gatekeeping to try to teach people better ways to do things.

jrm4 5y ago
No, it's a good one. What y'all mistakenly assumed was the idea of "every computer task is a life or death one" instead of considering the idea that there can be different levels of care for different levels of danger. The reason many people in IT can't think outside of this idea is that they are (subconsciously) reluctant to open the gates for others. As a teacher in IT I quite literally deal with this every day.
- carapace 5y ago
  I really don't think that teaching people better ways to do things is exclusionary. The OP even included the reasons why their version is preferable. You really see that as complaining and gatekeeping? An 'utterly and completely necessary "correction."'?
  - jrm4 5y ago
    The problem is that it's rarely "Oh, I see that your way works. But here's another way that I'm pretty sure is better, and here's why." It's nearly always "WRONG. THIS IS THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE WAY TO DO IT."
philwelch 5y ago
Comparing the failure of a multi million dollar space probe to a stripped screw head seems like an even worse analogy to me.
- carapace 5y ago
  The moral of the story is "Don't mix metric and imperial." Using that as an example of a trivial thing that shouldn't be corrected is foolish and ignorant. It's practically inviting Murphy.
  - philwelch 5y ago
    The moral of the story is “don’t mix units”. It would have been the same problem if the units were inches and feet or meters and kilometers as it is with feet and meters.

jrm4 5y ago

No, it's a good one. What y'all mistakenly assumed was the idea of "every computer task is a life or death one" instead of considering the idea that there can be different levels of care for different levels of danger. The reason many people in IT can't think outside of this idea is that they are (subconsciously) reluctant to open the gates for others. As a teacher in IT I quite literally deal with this every day.

carapace 5y ago
I really don't think that teaching people better ways to do things is exclusionary. The OP even included the reasons why their version is preferable. You really see that as complaining and gatekeeping? An 'utterly and completely necessary "correction."'?
- jrm4 5y ago
  The problem is that it's rarely "Oh, I see that your way works. But here's another way that I'm pretty sure is better, and here's why." It's nearly always "WRONG. THIS IS THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE WAY TO DO IT."

philwelch 5y ago

Comparing the failure of a multi million dollar space probe to a stripped screw head seems like an even worse analogy to me.

carapace 5y ago
The moral of the story is "Don't mix metric and imperial." Using that as an example of a trivial thing that shouldn't be corrected is foolish and ignorant. It's practically inviting Murphy.
- philwelch 5y ago
  The moral of the story is “don’t mix units”. It would have been the same problem if the units were inches and feet or meters and kilometers as it is with feet and meters.