The Conficker Syndrome, Salvationware, And The Real Matrix
Remember in “The Matrix”
What is the Matrix? Control.
Now, we might not live inside a matrix (and even if we did, we wouldn’t know it, so it wouldn’t make a difference), but much of the ado we are facing, especially in the mass media, is just about that: Control.[toc class=toc-right style=”margin-top:-.1em”]
Mindfulness And Boredom
Some time ago, I discovered yet another article praising the “single-tasking” mode of the human brain. Once more, an artificial parallel to programming is drawn, and the inherent losses of context switching in multithreaded software.
As if the human brain was anywhere close in function to a computer!
Usually, I’d just smile and move on to more funded writing, but this time I decided I’d make a statement or two on the topic.
Of Boiling Frogs And Chinese Whispers
When I wrote “Psychology Of IT Language“, I brought up the aspect of communication of principles, the implicit communication of values, and its possible psychological impact on an organization.
As I’m further contemplating about it, patterns begin to disclose themselves. Two such patterns are Chinese Whisper and Boiling Frog. But before I go into them, an example:
Post-Columbian Project Management By Dummies
Some time ago, I wrote about John, the fictive trekking leader, who came to fame and glory out of ignorance, and drew parallels to project management today. As it turns out, I didn’t have to invent a fictive story to illustrate the situation – there is an astounding historical example that backs it up 100%.
On this terrific Wikipedia page about common misconceptions, I found this: Read more >>
Evolution And Project Management
In “The Costs Of Not Doing Something Else“, I made the aside conclusion that John’s trek only needed to meet some minimum criteria in order to be considered a success. That is an inherent property of what can be called an uncompetitive system.1
Coming back from treks to projects, I state:
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- An uncompetitive system is a system lacking comparison to other systems of a kind. [↩]
The Costs Of Not Doing Something Else
I finished my last article on the project management topic with the thought:
It is common to measure the cost of what we do. But how do we measure the cost of what we don’t do, or don’t do differently?
In essence, it’s a question of how to measure the relative advantage or disadvantage of doing things one way or another.
To exemplify, I’d like to metaphorically use the notion of a trekking leader. (In many ways, a trekking leader is a good metaphor for a project manager, I believe.)
About Real And Fake Projects
During my career, I’ve occasionally encountered a certain type of project – a facade project.
I’m talking about the kind of “project” defined purely for administration purposes, and otherwise lacking the immanent properties of a real project, such as, and most importantly, a defined goal, and a limited time.
KISS My A*s
In my prior articles, I wrote about my views on simplicity, my objections to putting diffuse concepts into seemingly straight rules, and the risk of unintentionally sending the wrong messages therewith. Since then, I seem to keep stumbling upon stuff that somehow adds to my position.
KISS, in its purest an acronym for “Keep it simple, stupid” (note the comma!), is another example of a brilliant principle diluted in the process of mass circulation. Read more >>
Be Careful What You Optimize For
In two recent posts, I wrote about the notions of clever and dumb code, and the possible implications of their usage in their every-day language. There’s a particular point of interest related to these posts:
A common – and very understandable – motivation for requiring code to be “dumb” is the reasoning that if the code was dumb, then less skilled – and less paid – programmers could take on software development.
This is anther example how doing (or thinking) the “obvious” is a clear sign of shortsightedness.
Aside from evidence that mediocrity costs more, there is one more interesting long-term effect:
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About Code Dumbness And Programmer Cleverness
Reading an interview with Kirk Pepperdine, I came accros the following statement:
Dumb code tends to be more readable and hence more understandable.
It is a position I discover quite frequently, in particular with people from management. It’s about time to present a different view Read more >>
