🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 2017-12-31, maus wrote:
> On 2017-12-31, Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>> On Sun, 2017-12-31, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>> On 2017-12-30, Dan Espen <dan1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> ...
>>>> I worked in lots of industries.
>>>> Knowledge of the business was NEVER an issue.
>>>> The skill is in prying the needed information out
>>>> of the users, not in knowing what they need beforehand.
>>>
>>> This assumes you can even talk to the users.  If it is a
>>> political requirement that everything passes through an
>>> intermediary, things are inevitably going to get garbled.
>>> At my first job I finally got a chance to talk directly to
>>> the customer, and it was amazing how much we were able to
>>> clear the air.
>>
>> I sometimes wonder how many projects are saved by people cutting
>> through the red tape that way ...
>
> One great example was the Thatcher Government reducing the regulations
> on treating scrap meat before it was fed to animals. BSE, anyone, and
> try to find how many people died of it. 
>
> Then we have the recent example of the tower block in london, in which 
> many people died.

Yes. There is this tension between:

a) Letting people feel they are responsible for making things work
   out well.
b) Distrusting people and making up rules they have to follow, like
   machines.

(a) is vulnerable to incompetence, corruption and wishful thinking.
(b) ignores people's desire to do a good job and to use the best of
    themselves to help others.

I tend to think there's too much of (b) these days.  Not just in
software development; lots of workers seem to spend a lot of time
following rules and documenting what they are doing, as if they were
executing an algorithm.  I'd rather risk some corruption, since most
people seem to be eager to do useful work.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .