5 ms·

On Management and the Maginot Line

26 points by Jach 4y ago

noufalibrahim 4y ago
OT but does anyone know what's up with esr? His blog seems to be half baked and just thrown back up and there's no information about him anywhere.
- evronm 4y ago
  Not OT at all. ESR's writing is really about his particular world view, which is surprisingly coherent, so it makes sense to inquire about the author's whereabouts. With that out of the way, I was pleasantly surprised to see him show up on LW[1] a while back. 1. https://www.lesswrong.com/users/eric-raymond https://www.lesswrong.com/users/eric-raymond
- EarlKing 4y ago
  I'd like to know that myself. He pretty much stopped posting everywhere after getting tossed out of the OSI. I won't delve into speculation, but I do suspect money was a factor given his prior requests for financial aid.
stochastimus 4y ago
Too bad the Maginot line is mentioned only in passing in the blog - the Maginot line really is a testament to the failure of central planning and bureaucracy to produce and execute on ideas that stand the tests of time and battle. A drastic (but mostly true) oversimplification is this: France, seeing Hitler’s military buildup, created an impenetrable fortress along the border and sucked the life out of the French economy to build, supply, and man it. One failure was the inability to see that German light armor could navigate the Ardennes forest and circumvent it. Another failure was that the massive gun turrets periodically embedded in the fortification were designed so that they couldn’t be rotated to point back toward France; as a result, they couldn’t be used to defend against an army which had circumvented the wall. So, in the end, the French had simply provided the Germans with a massive cache of ammunition, food, guns, and other supplies which were all stocked within the Maginot fortification. Here’s the wikipedia entry for anyone interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line
- club_tropical 4y ago
  > testament to the failure of central planning and bureaucracy Central planning is the only way inter-nation wars make sense; bellum omnium contra omnes is just chaos. Bureaucracy (aka division of power, aka decision by consensus/committee) is the real problem. It becomes a turf war or a “not my responsibility” issue.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Great summary, but worth mentioning the Line was not a single fortress but many many over hundreds of kilometers.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    And it was never breached directly, instead it was the failure of France (a certain General Huntziger stabds out), the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands to halt the German invasion through the low countries. For all intended purposes, the Marginot line worked as intended and didn't fail. A lot of other stuff did. By now you can basically use the Maginot line as a litmus test whether or not people properly analyzed a topic or if they work based on memes. Edit: The push through the Ardennes was a gamble even the German army, and its Generals, were surprised to actually work.
- byroot 4y ago
  > created an impenetrable fortress along the border Absolutely not. No-one ever expected the Maginot line to hold more than a few weeks. It's goal was two-fold: - Delay the invasion by a few weeks to give time for mobilization. - Force Germany to go through Belgium again to ensure the involvement of the United Kingdom which was guaranteeing Belguim. And both goals were achieved. > Another failure was that the massive gun turrets periodically embedded in the fortification were designed so that they couldn’t be rotated to point back toward France That's absolutely not a failure, it's a lesson learned from WWI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Douaumont https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Douaumont
  - drc500free 4y ago
tkk23 4y ago
The article finishes with a great conclusion ("play is the most economically efficient mode of creative work") but I think that this is not a win-lose, war-like situation because business doesn't care about efficiency but profitability. >it's going to remain viable in each individual application area for only so long as nobody finds those problems really interesting and nobody else finds any way to route around them This is enough. Gimp hasn't become Photoshop since forever. Software scales so that many inefficient programmers can be used to create something marginally valuable that can be reproduced endlessly. >She spends most of her time organizing the deployment of the other 95%, Looking from the point of view of the 95%, it creates the opportunity to work on something that is valued in society. Instead of doing nothing and only being amazed by the 5%, it's possible for everybody to work on something and to participate.
YouWhy 4y ago
I have nothing but respect for ESR, however in this piece he skims the existence of an immense economic demand for - building software that's highly unappealing for anyone with even a trace of artistry in them. In particular, this includes SW that requires hundreds of different people to form consensus on hundreds of topics in which many have stakes, but few understand holistically. - building SW that has a bus factor > 1, preferably >3, and have it for a much longer time than is humanely possible to expect from a contributor on any given project Accordingly, there's an ecosystem of craftspeople who can reliably deliver on said demand. This ecosystem replaces enthusiasm with formal management. It is remarkably wasteful and uninspiring, yet also undoubtedly economically viable.
marcus_holmes 4y ago
It lost me at the assertion of the 100x productivity differences between programmers. There's not a single study that shows this to be true (that I'm aware of, happy to hear if anyone has one). I don't think programmers are fungible, there are differences in productivity, as you'd expect, but even the more-commonly-cited "10x" is bullshit.
- Veuxdo 4y ago
  > It lost me at the assertion of the 100x productivity differences between programmers. Is there not a trivial counter-example: the programmer from an awful boot camp on his first day on the job vs., say, John Carmack.
  - marcus_holmes 4y ago
    > and has thus observed first-hand the well-known variance of a factor of one hundred in productivity between the most able programmers and the merely competent. from the text - it excludes the trivial counter-examples. No-one expects complete newbies to be productive, or even capable of performing the task set. The comparison is always between normal, professional programmers and those "10x" alpha-male (they're always male) exceptional individuals who break all the rules (and therefore don't have to obey them). I've worked with a few self-described "10x" programmers, and (like the few self-described "alpha male" guys I've worked with) they're always toxic assholes who don't understand how teams work. In every case the team would have worked better, faster, without them. But that's anecdata.
    - Veuxdo 4y ago
      Are there any 10x professions? There are certainly 10x products and companies (e.g. Oreo vs. Hydrox, Google vs. Lycos). They got that why by making better choices. Many more than "10" x better choices. Could this apply to developers also?
    - jmillikin 4y ago
      > The comparison is always between normal, professional programmers > and those "10x" alpha-male The commonly-cited 10x difference is between the best and worst engineers, not best and average.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
> It may well turn out that one of the most important effects of open source's success will be to teach us that play is the most economically efficient mode of creative work. I had just mentioned an old aphorism in a previous comment: "It's not work, if you love what you do." That's certainly where I'm at. That comment was part of a thread, where someone pointed out that they were making fun of me, on Reddit (Oh dear, whatever shall I do?), and where I had mentioned that I currently code every single day (like, 7 days a week), and learn something new, every day. When I left my last company (after almost 27 years), I tried finding work, and was frozen out (because gray hair). I'm quite sure that I would have been able to get work, if I had been willing to put on a bib, and eat s**t. I just found that prospect unpalatable, and I had enough, so it was not a desperate situation. I was forced into retirement. Best thing that ever happened to me. After five years out of the rat race, I have no intention of being dragged back into the fracas. Most of the misery of my work life was caused by bad management. I like to think that I was a good manager (my employees seemed to think so), but I was hobbled by corporate policy, and the dozens of terrible managers around and above me. Since leaving, I have worked harder than I ever have, and I love it. I am used to getting up early, and accomplishing more, by 9AM, than I used to get done, all day in the office. I take breaks when I want. I'll even nap, from time to time, or catch up on the soaps, and I still bang out one hell of a lot of really high-Quality stuff, really, really quickly. Of course, a lot of ship, is not fun. The fun part is usually the first 30%. The last 70% of a ship project is not so much fun. I do it, anyway. The reason is because I'm a completionist. I like to finish stuff. Makes me feel all warm, inside.
dangrover 4y ago
This misunderstands the management that happens in companies. Of course you need to sort through goals, figure out priorities, get groups to align on key decisions, monitor them, direct resources towards them, and have people who can do unpleasant things like talk to users and customers, do research, etc. The bazaar composed of only programmers randomly working on parts they think are interesting or fun can’t achieve the same results in solving end users problems because it isn’t incentivized to.

26 points by Jach 4y ago

OT but does anyone know what's up with esr? His blog seems to be half baked and just thrown back up and there's no information about him anywhere.

evronm 4y ago
Not OT at all. ESR's writing is really about his particular world view, which is surprisingly coherent, so it makes sense to inquire about the author's whereabouts. With that out of the way, I was pleasantly surprised to see him show up on LW[1] a while back. 1. https://www.lesswrong.com/users/eric-raymond https://www.lesswrong.com/users/eric-raymond
EarlKing 4y ago
I'd like to know that myself. He pretty much stopped posting everywhere after getting tossed out of the OSI. I won't delve into speculation, but I do suspect money was a factor given his prior requests for financial aid.

stochastimus 4y ago

Too bad the Maginot line is mentioned only in passing in the blog - the Maginot line really is a testament to the failure of central planning and bureaucracy to produce and execute on ideas that stand the tests of time and battle. A drastic (but mostly true) oversimplification is this: France, seeing Hitler’s military buildup, created an impenetrable fortress along the border and sucked the life out of the French economy to build, supply, and man it. One failure was the inability to see that German light armor could navigate the Ardennes forest and circumvent it. Another failure was that the massive gun turrets periodically embedded in the fortification were designed so that they couldn’t be rotated to point back toward France; as a result, they couldn’t be used to defend against an army which had circumvented the wall. So, in the end, the French had simply provided the Germans with a massive cache of ammunition, food, guns, and other supplies which were all stocked within the Maginot fortification. Here’s the wikipedia entry for anyone interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line

club_tropical 4y ago
> testament to the failure of central planning and bureaucracy Central planning is the only way inter-nation wars make sense; bellum omnium contra omnes is just chaos. Bureaucracy (aka division of power, aka decision by consensus/committee) is the real problem. It becomes a turf war or a “not my responsibility” issue.
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Great summary, but worth mentioning the Line was not a single fortress but many many over hundreds of kilometers.
- hef19898 4y ago
  And it was never breached directly, instead it was the failure of France (a certain General Huntziger stabds out), the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands to halt the German invasion through the low countries. For all intended purposes, the Marginot line worked as intended and didn't fail. A lot of other stuff did. By now you can basically use the Maginot line as a litmus test whether or not people properly analyzed a topic or if they work based on memes. Edit: The push through the Ardennes was a gamble even the German army, and its Generals, were surprised to actually work.
byroot 4y ago
> created an impenetrable fortress along the border Absolutely not. No-one ever expected the Maginot line to hold more than a few weeks. It's goal was two-fold: - Delay the invasion by a few weeks to give time for mobilization. - Force Germany to go through Belgium again to ensure the involvement of the United Kingdom which was guaranteeing Belguim. And both goals were achieved. > Another failure was that the massive gun turrets periodically embedded in the fortification were designed so that they couldn’t be rotated to point back toward France That's absolutely not a failure, it's a lesson learned from WWI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Douaumont https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Douaumont
- drc500free 4y ago

tkk23 4y ago

The article finishes with a great conclusion ("play is the most economically efficient mode of creative work") but I think that this is not a win-lose, war-like situation because business doesn't care about efficiency but profitability. >it's going to remain viable in each individual application area for only so long as nobody finds those problems really interesting and nobody else finds any way to route around them This is enough. Gimp hasn't become Photoshop since forever. Software scales so that many inefficient programmers can be used to create something marginally valuable that can be reproduced endlessly. >She spends most of her time organizing the deployment of the other 95%, Looking from the point of view of the 95%, it creates the opportunity to work on something that is valued in society. Instead of doing nothing and only being amazed by the 5%, it's possible for everybody to work on something and to participate.

YouWhy 4y ago

I have nothing but respect for ESR, however in this piece he skims the existence of an immense economic demand for - building software that's highly unappealing for anyone with even a trace of artistry in them. In particular, this includes SW that requires hundreds of different people to form consensus on hundreds of topics in which many have stakes, but few understand holistically. - building SW that has a bus factor > 1, preferably >3, and have it for a much longer time than is humanely possible to expect from a contributor on any given project Accordingly, there's an ecosystem of craftspeople who can reliably deliver on said demand. This ecosystem replaces enthusiasm with formal management. It is remarkably wasteful and uninspiring, yet also undoubtedly economically viable.

marcus_holmes 4y ago

It lost me at the assertion of the 100x productivity differences between programmers. There's not a single study that shows this to be true (that I'm aware of, happy to hear if anyone has one). I don't think programmers are fungible, there are differences in productivity, as you'd expect, but even the more-commonly-cited "10x" is bullshit.

Veuxdo 4y ago
> It lost me at the assertion of the 100x productivity differences between programmers. Is there not a trivial counter-example: the programmer from an awful boot camp on his first day on the job vs., say, John Carmack.
- marcus_holmes 4y ago
  > and has thus observed first-hand the well-known variance of a factor of one hundred in productivity between the most able programmers and the merely competent. from the text - it excludes the trivial counter-examples. No-one expects complete newbies to be productive, or even capable of performing the task set. The comparison is always between normal, professional programmers and those "10x" alpha-male (they're always male) exceptional individuals who break all the rules (and therefore don't have to obey them). I've worked with a few self-described "10x" programmers, and (like the few self-described "alpha male" guys I've worked with) they're always toxic assholes who don't understand how teams work. In every case the team would have worked better, faster, without them. But that's anecdata.
  - Veuxdo 4y ago
    Are there any 10x professions? There are certainly 10x products and companies (e.g. Oreo vs. Hydrox, Google vs. Lycos). They got that why by making better choices. Many more than "10" x better choices. Could this apply to developers also?
  - jmillikin 4y ago
    > The comparison is always between normal, professional programmers > and those "10x" alpha-male The commonly-cited 10x difference is between the best and worst engineers, not best and average.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

> It may well turn out that one of the most important effects of open source's success will be to teach us that play is the most economically efficient mode of creative work. I had just mentioned an old aphorism in a previous comment: "It's not work, if you love what you do." That's certainly where I'm at. That comment was part of a thread, where someone pointed out that they were making fun of me, on Reddit (Oh dear, whatever shall I do?), and where I had mentioned that I currently code every single day (like, 7 days a week), and learn something new, every day. When I left my last company (after almost 27 years), I tried finding work, and was frozen out (because gray hair). I'm quite sure that I would have been able to get work, if I had been willing to put on a bib, and eat s**t. I just found that prospect unpalatable, and I had enough, so it was not a desperate situation. I was forced into retirement. Best thing that ever happened to me. After five years out of the rat race, I have no intention of being dragged back into the fracas. Most of the misery of my work life was caused by bad management. I like to think that I was a good manager (my employees seemed to think so), but I was hobbled by corporate policy, and the dozens of terrible managers around and above me. Since leaving, I have worked harder than I ever have, and I love it. I am used to getting up early, and accomplishing more, by 9AM, than I used to get done, all day in the office. I take breaks when I want. I'll even nap, from time to time, or catch up on the soaps, and I still bang out one hell of a lot of really high-Quality stuff, really, really quickly. Of course, a lot of ship, is not fun. The fun part is usually the first 30%. The last 70% of a ship project is not so much fun. I do it, anyway. The reason is because I'm a completionist. I like to finish stuff. Makes me feel all warm, inside.

dangrover 4y ago

This misunderstands the management that happens in companies. Of course you need to sort through goals, figure out priorities, get groups to align on key decisions, monitor them, direct resources towards them, and have people who can do unpleasant things like talk to users and customers, do research, etc. The bazaar composed of only programmers randomly working on parts they think are interesting or fun can’t achieve the same results in solving end users problems because it isn’t incentivized to.