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Ah, so it is like the "Bug Free Code Hypothesis". If someone is paid to write code, then theoretically that code should be making money for someone, and it shou

by foldr 2y ago

Ah, so it is like the "Bug Free Code Hypothesis". If someone is paid to write code, then theoretically that code should be making money for someone, and it should be making them more money if all the bugs were fixed.

dmix 2y ago
Do you compare all of your economics to bad programming managers?
- foldr 2y ago
  Not exactly, but I think that analogies with everyday experiences can help to show how silly some of these hypotheses are when considered in more concrete terms. “People have lots of incentives to eliminate Xs, therefore there won’t be any Xs” is an argument schema for which counterexamples abound. To be fair, the "Bug Free Code Hypothesis" is kind of true. Because there are lots of incentives to eliminate bugs, people do put a lot of time and effort into doing so – yielding modern miracles such as OS kernels with 30 million lines of code that almost always work as intended. But while software is bug free to a perhaps surprising extent, it would be foolish to plan a software project on the assumption that there will not be any bugs to fix, or that a small number of bugs cannot have a big impact. Similarly, it seems unwise to assume the efficiency of markets in economic planning (though I don't know to what extent economists actually do this).
  - dmix 2y ago
    I'm wary to using analogies of smaller team dynamics for wider systems. Markets have a disconnected impersonal nature where things have a way of shaking out. Most of those programming management memes come from big companies with giant teams that don't live or die on output, many of them are shielded from that sort of thing because of cash cows like Microsoft/Google or corporate megadeals like IBM/Oracle. So there's never any shake ups until it's long been obvious to the customers.
    - foldr 2y ago
      I'm not using an analogy of smaller team dynamics. One can talk about software bugs in general and the general incentives to fix them just as one can talk about the economy in general and the general incentives for people to make money. I'm also not referencing any programming management memes. I think maybe you're seeing a cynicism in my comment that's not there. I don't think that bugs exists because of dumb managers. I think they exist because it's very difficult to write code without any bugs, even when there are very strong incentives to do so. That's partly just because it's inherently difficult, and partly because there are also other incentives pulling in different directions.

by foldr 2y ago

dmix 2y ago

Do you compare all of your economics to bad programming managers?

foldr 2y ago
Not exactly, but I think that analogies with everyday experiences can help to show how silly some of these hypotheses are when considered in more concrete terms. “People have lots of incentives to eliminate Xs, therefore there won’t be any Xs” is an argument schema for which counterexamples abound. To be fair, the "Bug Free Code Hypothesis" is kind of true. Because there are lots of incentives to eliminate bugs, people do put a lot of time and effort into doing so – yielding modern miracles such as OS kernels with 30 million lines of code that almost always work as intended. But while software is bug free to a perhaps surprising extent, it would be foolish to plan a software project on the assumption that there will not be any bugs to fix, or that a small number of bugs cannot have a big impact. Similarly, it seems unwise to assume the efficiency of markets in economic planning (though I don't know to what extent economists actually do this).
- dmix 2y ago
  I'm wary to using analogies of smaller team dynamics for wider systems. Markets have a disconnected impersonal nature where things have a way of shaking out. Most of those programming management memes come from big companies with giant teams that don't live or die on output, many of them are shielded from that sort of thing because of cash cows like Microsoft/Google or corporate megadeals like IBM/Oracle. So there's never any shake ups until it's long been obvious to the customers.
  - foldr 2y ago
    I'm not using an analogy of smaller team dynamics. One can talk about software bugs in general and the general incentives to fix them just as one can talk about the economy in general and the general incentives for people to make money. I'm also not referencing any programming management memes. I think maybe you're seeing a cynicism in my comment that's not there. I don't think that bugs exists because of dumb managers. I think they exist because it's very difficult to write code without any bugs, even when there are very strong incentives to do so. That's partly just because it's inherently difficult, and partly because there are also other incentives pulling in different directions.