7 ms·

Leslie Lamport wrote about it Simply put, given a continuous function mononically increasing from 0 to 1, given any degree of discernment X there will be some

by EGreg 4y ago

Leslie Lamport wrote about it Simply put, given a continuous function mononically increasing from 0 to 1, given any degree of discernment X there will be some radius interval Y in which the function is closer than X to 1/2. And people won’t be able to tell for a while what’s better. If you add random perturbations people will still be sitting there for a while figuring it out, because it could go either way. Like a pencil which is almost perfectly balanced will take a long time to “figure out” which way to fall. The interesting thing is that even if you had a timer to go off that said “if you haven’t made a decision by time Z, then choose the first one” there is also a nonzero probability that you won’t be able to tell whether you haven’t made a decision! It is also ambiguous. Read the paper… it took me a while to get it as I corresponded w Leslie about it https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/buridan.pdf https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/buridan.pdf

galaxyLogic 4y ago
That is a good reference, thank you: "The significance of Buridan’s Principle lies in its warning that decisions may, in rare circumstances, take much longer than expected." A software project may be late because it spent too much time to choose how to proceed. But it might also be late because it spent no time on choosing the best design to begin with and just chose a very bad design and went with it. That is why my favorite metaphor for software design is the game of Chess. Every design choice you make may lead to a winning position, or losing position. If you lose you may be able to "play again". But maybe not, because of budgetary constraints. There's just no Silver Bullet that would make you win in chess every time. But you can win sometimes, and get better at it.

7 ms·

Leslie Lamport wrote about it Simply put, given a continuous function mononically increasing from 0 to 1, given any degree of discernment X there will be some

by EGreg 4y ago

galaxyLogic 4y ago
That is a good reference, thank you: "The significance of Buridan’s Principle lies in its warning that decisions may, in rare circumstances, take much longer than expected." A software project may be late because it spent too much time to choose how to proceed. But it might also be late because it spent no time on choosing the best design to begin with and just chose a very bad design and went with it. That is why my favorite metaphor for software design is the game of Chess. Every design choice you make may lead to a winning position, or losing position. If you lose you may be able to "play again". But maybe not, because of budgetary constraints. There's just no Silver Bullet that would make you win in chess every time. But you can win sometimes, and get better at it.