4 ms·

If I ever found out someone did this not only would I fire them, I wouldn't keep it a secret. I'd make sure everyone on the team knew exactly why he was fired.

If I ever found out someone did this not only would I fire them, I wouldn't keep it a secret. I'd make sure everyone on the team knew exactly why he was fired. That is acting is gross bad faith. Think of the time it had cost all those people around the world just because he wanted a day off here and there. Blows my mind that someone would do that.

netcraft 12y ago
With my example I agree with you - the example in the article is different though - putting artificial constraints into a project to encourage innovation and making sure you have the necessary resources - and then removing the constraint before you go live - isn't a bad idea IMO, especially when you are dependent on multiple teams. Think of it as resistance training :)
samspot 12y ago
Not to defend this practice, but I heard a story about a whole team who put in a sleep that would automatically shrink over the first 6 months it was in production.
pc86 12y ago
I understand where you're coming from, and I agree with you, but we can't pretend that 1 second from 10,000 people is the even close to the same at 10,000 seconds from 1 person (or really anywhere in between). The entire concept of "we saved 10 million hours of productivity by shaving 1.8 seconds off this process" is bunk. You saved 1.8 seconds of productivity n million times, which adds up to not a whole lot of extra productivity. Put another way: Whether $APP takes 0.1 seconds or 1.9 seconds to do something does not at all change what time I'm leaving at the end of the day.
- Swizec 12y ago
  > Put another way: Whether $APP takes 0.1 seconds or 1.9 seconds to do something does not at all change what time I'm leaving at the end of the day. But it does greatly change how annoyed you leave at the end of day. Not to mention any noticeable delay in load times will quickly get people to start multitasking, which can easily change a 2s delay into a 2min delay. This can easily ... well it does make a difference. I noticed this mostly while testing code. After clicking through the interface many times it can easily add up to an hour less actual work getting done that day.
- sunfish 12y ago
  User behavior when interacting with a program that responds in 0.1 seconds is drastically different than with a program that responds in 1.9 seconds; see [0] [1] etc. I agree it's not very meaningful to just compute the total number of seconds saved, but on the other hand, the productivity gain could easily be far greater than what that number suggests too. [0] http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/06/speed-matters.html http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/06/speed-matters.htm... [1] http://www.webperformancematters.com/journal/2007/7/10/acceptable-response-times.html http://www.webperformancematters.com/journal/2007/7/10/accep...
- eloisant 12y ago
  Sometimes 2 or 3 more second is all it takes for the user to switch to procrastination "while it's loading" and waste much more time.
Gravityloss 12y ago
Companies do this on a much bigger scale though. The logic of planned obsolescence is very much the same. You get more benefits doing worse than what you could do.

netcraft 12y ago

With my example I agree with you - the example in the article is different though - putting artificial constraints into a project to encourage innovation and making sure you have the necessary resources - and then removing the constraint before you go live - isn't a bad idea IMO, especially when you are dependent on multiple teams. Think of it as resistance training :)

samspot 12y ago

Not to defend this practice, but I heard a story about a whole team who put in a sleep that would automatically shrink over the first 6 months it was in production.

pc86 12y ago

I understand where you're coming from, and I agree with you, but we can't pretend that 1 second from 10,000 people is the even close to the same at 10,000 seconds from 1 person (or really anywhere in between). The entire concept of "we saved 10 million hours of productivity by shaving 1.8 seconds off this process" is bunk. You saved 1.8 seconds of productivity n million times, which adds up to not a whole lot of extra productivity. Put another way: Whether $APP takes 0.1 seconds or 1.9 seconds to do something does not at all change what time I'm leaving at the end of the day.

Swizec 12y ago
> Put another way: Whether $APP takes 0.1 seconds or 1.9 seconds to do something does not at all change what time I'm leaving at the end of the day. But it does greatly change how annoyed you leave at the end of day. Not to mention any noticeable delay in load times will quickly get people to start multitasking, which can easily change a 2s delay into a 2min delay. This can easily ... well it does make a difference. I noticed this mostly while testing code. After clicking through the interface many times it can easily add up to an hour less actual work getting done that day.
sunfish 12y ago
User behavior when interacting with a program that responds in 0.1 seconds is drastically different than with a program that responds in 1.9 seconds; see [0] [1] etc. I agree it's not very meaningful to just compute the total number of seconds saved, but on the other hand, the productivity gain could easily be far greater than what that number suggests too. [0] http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/06/speed-matters.html http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/06/speed-matters.htm... [1] http://www.webperformancematters.com/journal/2007/7/10/acceptable-response-times.html http://www.webperformancematters.com/journal/2007/7/10/accep...
eloisant 12y ago
Sometimes 2 or 3 more second is all it takes for the user to switch to procrastination "while it's loading" and waste much more time.

Gravityloss 12y ago

Companies do this on a much bigger scale though. The logic of planned obsolescence is very much the same. You get more benefits doing worse than what you could do.