What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS 2000

(Eric Chomko) writes:

Nothing is - that's our point. Still, it has a lot of good things to say.

That's one of my favourites, too - although Brooks expresses it as the converse (i.e. reality vs. PHB fantasy): "The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are buttigned." (Page 17 in my copy, just above Fig. 2.2: Time versus number of workers - unparbreastionable task)

So are many of us here. It comes from experience.

IMHO Brooks had a lot of good things that needed saying. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't justify your flimsy and thinly veiled insults. That's a PHB trick, and Brooks clearly identified himself as being on the other side of that fence.

I think we're in violent agreement here.

Tell that to an irate customer.

poo happens. That's an inevitability. Oh, we all dream of a perfect world where everything works the first time. But most of us realize that this is nothing more than a nice fantasy; we then get on with doing whatever it takes to get an acceptable result in the real world.

We always strive for success. The stories come from what we had to do to get there.

Is it? Even if the customer doesn't know what he wants, or can't articulate it? Or asks for things that can be mathematically proven to be impossible?

Perhaps. But sometimes perfection - even if it can be attained - costs more than the customer is willing to pay. And all the ranting in the world won't change this. As the old saying goes: "Fast, cheap, good: pick any two."

No, we're facing up to reality. That's not to say that we don't try to do our best. But sometimes perfection is such an elusive goal that you eventually have to draw the line and say, "This is good enough."

In many other highly respected opinions, though, it's wholly realistic. I like to tell people that my crystal ball is broken. I never seem to be able to foretell every little thing that will happen after a project has started. Those who claim to be able to do so - be it through a new methodology or whatever - usually turn out to be snake oil salesmen.

The truth, as ever, lies between the two extremes. Politicians love to dictate reality - just ask Robert Mugabe. (Oooh, slipped by Godwin with that one.)

In my experience, reality is like a rubber band: you can stretch it a long way, but eventually it's going to snap back. Stretch it far enough and someone's going to get hurt when it does snap. The nice thing about being a consultant or politician is that you can usually arrange to be long gone (with the money, of course) by the time this happens.

There's another word for "dictating reality": denial. That's never a viable long-term strategy. But in this age of short-term thinking, who'd be the wiser?

-- I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way. X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855. HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!