"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist."
Another corollary to Conway’s Law: Most organizations are hierarchical, meaning that most software will be hierarchical, no matter how inappropriate for the task and/or user.
Oliver
“Indeed, one of the ways of establishing conceptual control over such structure [software plans as richly connected network graphs] is to enforce link cutting until one or more of the graphs becomes hierarchical.”—Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
Brooks, usually profound, of course misses that you can have coherence without hierarchy, and that to cut a link is to destroy information.
Oliver
If you ever find yourself uncritically believing attacks against your enemies, take one of your heroes from the past and read what people said and believed about them.
Oliver
My corollary to Conway’s Law: Designs and communication structures will cycle endlessly until the communication structure changes (deliberately or accidentally). Twitter icon
Oliver
Often, fights seem to happen because when one person brings up a grievance, the other is tempted to counter with another grievance (defensively or because they have no other opportunity), thus escalation; the solution, perhaps: regularly air grievances, never do so as a reaction.
Oliver
“Thus, although the saint puts himself last, finds himself in the lead.
Although he is not self-concerned, finds himself accomplished.
It is because he is not focused on self-interests and hence can fulfill his true nature.” —Tao Te Ching
Oliver
Ted Nelson once quipped, “Can you believe that some people spend more money on their cars than their computers?” 2019 US average new car price: $38k; computer: $650. There are caveats, but this strikes me as astonishingly low relative spending on brain-augmentation.
Oliver
Being on the right side of history means holding on to something long enough that it becomes old, a little boring or, figuratively, history, at least long enough for the tide of fashion to have gone out and tested whether you can stand unassisted.
Oliver
Get rid of the need for praise and recognition, and assume that nobody will give you any of either ever again. This will, hopefully, make you a little more sure that you’re in for the right reasons, plus any praise that occurs is a bonus.
Oliver
Often people see progress as a straight line, in fact it’s a branching tree with many rejected possibilities. Corollary 1: Don’t be smug about your politics, you may be on a dead end. Corollary 2: Remember that dead ends are necessary, like failed products or rejected hypotheses.
Oliver