71–80 of 123 posts
I grabbed this article and replaced: - "carpenter" with "data scientist" - "brown" with "machine learning" - "walnut" with "AI" and - "rock" with "Kubernetes" It was perfectly up to date regarding my neck of the woods :) (edit: formatting)
That sounds hilarious. Could you post it here?
The equivalent the other way. If programmers hired like carpenters are hired made a table: "How long will it take to make this table?" "3 weeks. But we're going to try using this new kind of leg because it's easier to replace with another leg if you don't like it. So it may take 5 weeks." 5 weeks pass "Is the table done?" "Well, no, not really. But now you can have four different legs if you want to. We've also got t…
Customer: I want a table with four legs.
Dev: Ok, give me 2 days and it is done. after 2 days Here's your particle board table about 1 meter off the ground with seating for 4.
Customer: Great, but it would be nice if it could seat 6 sometimes because we sometimes have guests.
Dev: Ok, give me half a week. 3 days pass Ok, here's your table for 6, we had to change the material to wood to make it more durable and unfortunately it increases the cost.
Customer: No way I'll pay extra for wood. What's wrong with particle board? And the texture of this wood is too noticeable, the texture has to be more subtle. And we want to minimize the size to a table of 4 when the guests are not around so we can have more floor space.
Dev: Ok but expandable tables are significantly more complex and I don't think we can do it with your cost contraints. Can you consider increasing the cost?
Customer: What are you talking about? When I asked the Indian shop down the road they said it was possible at this cost. Are you lying to me? If you don't fix this and deliver then I want my money back and I'll just go with the competition.
Dev: Ok, we obviously can't compete with that price so here's your refund. But we highly don't recommend that shop because you will have issues with the table.
Customer: I think everything will be fine. Good luck to you and don't try to upsell me.
6 months later
Customer: Here's the table the Indian shop built. It sometimes won't collapse and they can't figure out what's wrong with it. Can you fix it?
Dev: Ok, we can take a look... You see the problem is this rail design is not fit for these specifications. We can fix it temporarily but in order to fix it permanently we have to rebuild the table top surface which means only the legs will be reused.
Customer: What do you mean? Can't you just install new rails?
Dev: You see, particle board is too flexible a material so over time the fasteners will fail. That's why we recommend wood. But you didn't want to pay for that in the beginning so we didn't want to continue with the contract.
Customer: Fine! Fix it, we need the table next week for a dinner party. How much?
Dev: Our backlog indicates we're booked for the next month. So to prioritize this job we need additional compensation as we'll temporarily have to hire additional help to satisfy demand.
Customer: Are you crazy? I can get 2 new tables that don't expand for that price. This isn't rocket science, I'll find my own way.
6 months later
Customer: We need a table. We're ready to pay anything.
Dev: Oh, you're in luck. Expandable tables are now free of charge. We only charge an installation fee and optional warranty fee if you want us to fix potential issues after delivery. The only catch is they only come in white.
Customer: Excellent, but what about brown? And since it is so cheap now can't you make it height adjustable?
Dev: The brown configuration is a small additional fee but the height adjustable feature has to be made from scratch as it is new technology. It is quite expensive because the motors have not been validated yet, so we have to do a qualification test on each part.
Customer: what? just give me the white table and I'll go talk to the Indians again.
---
Software often has expanding scope and new "innovative" requirements. It is almost never the case that we have a fixed deliverable; once the customer has a solution, they immediately want something else improved. This flexibility manifests on additional R&D costs for new or customized technology.
Interviewer: since you have experience working with wood, show us how you would implement photosynthesis on this whiteboard... Or Interviewer: what's the most popular kind of wood right now? Exactly. We're putting together a team to make a sink using it. In the second phase we will use wood to build a toilet. Interested? Or Interviewer: A carpenter? We were looking more for a mahogany-scientist or a pine-wizard. Are…
> what's the most popular kind of wood right now? Exactly. We're putting together a team to make a sink using it. In the second phase we will use wood to build a toilet. Interested? that's actually kinda fun!
>that's actually kinda fun!
(years later) ... and that's how I ended up installing toilets in exchange for equity.
Interviewer: since you have experience working with wood, show us how you would implement photosynthesis on this whiteboard... Or Interviewer: what's the most popular kind of wood right now? Exactly. We're putting together a team to make a sink using it. In the second phase we will use wood to build a toilet. Interested? Or Interviewer: A carpenter? We were looking more for a mahogany-scientist or a pine-wizard. Are…
Please draw the molecular diagram for Cellulose. What if the requirements were a 20% increase in cellular wall strength? Design a new polysaccharide that fulfills this requirement. Select a plant, how would you modify the genome of that plant to begin producing this new cell wall. Given this sequence of basepairs, compute the resulting protein that may be expressed from this sequence. Suppose Xylem was no longer an a…
The equivalent the other way. If programmers hired like carpenters are hired made a table: "How long will it take to make this table?" "3 weeks. But we're going to try using this new kind of leg because it's easier to replace with another leg if you don't like it. So it may take 5 weeks." 5 weeks pass "Is the table done?" "Well, no, not really. But now you can have four different legs if you want to. We've also got t…
This isn't accurate. It is more like: Customer: I want a table with four legs. Dev: Ok, give me 2 days and it is done. after 2 days Here's your particle board table about 1 meter off the ground with seating for 4. Customer: Great, but it would be nice if it could seat 6 sometimes because we sometimes have guests. Dev: Ok, give me half a week. 3 days pass Ok, here's your table for 6, we had to change the material to w…
the small changes never stopped coming until it was a new website. I kept all the major versions so they could see their changes as they developed, so that when they demoed it to a focus group one of the people accidentally navigated to the original version.
next meeting: What is this website? a user accidentally navigated to it and this is now what we want. ... the original version
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what's the most popular kind of wood right now? Exactly. We're putting together a team to make a sink using it. In the second phase we will use wood to build a toilet. Interested? that's actually kinda fun!
>> what's the most popular kind of wood right now? Exactly. We're putting together a team to make a sink using it. In the second phase we will use wood to build a toilet. Interested? >that's actually kinda fun! (years later) ... and that's how I ended up installing toilets in exchange for equity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd flip that around. The key question is "Have you actually built a house? You didn't have to do all of the work, but have you built a house and understand how all the pieces fit together so you could help us build us a house of our own? Could you help us hire a plumber, know enough about his work to keep an eye on him and help him out while we're out playing golf?" "Heck no. I've spent the last ten years becoming a…
It depends on if you're hiring the general contractor or the guy to install the cabinet doors.
A carpenter knows enough to know not to try and do the electrical work, because he'll probably do it wrong.
The equivalent the other way. If programmers hired like carpenters are hired made a table: "How long will it take to make this table?" "3 weeks. But we're going to try using this new kind of leg because it's easier to replace with another leg if you don't like it. So it may take 5 weeks." 5 weeks pass "Is the table done?" "Well, no, not really. But now you can have four different legs if you want to. We've also got t…
This isn't accurate. It is more like: Customer: I want a table with four legs. Dev: Ok, give me 2 days and it is done. after 2 days Here's your particle board table about 1 meter off the ground with seating for 4. Customer: Great, but it would be nice if it could seat 6 sometimes because we sometimes have guests. Dev: Ok, give me half a week. 3 days pass Ok, here's your table for 6, we had to change the material to w…
You forgot the job description beforehand that expects the carpenter to also have experience as a metalworker, welder, plumber, electrician and bricklayer. Oh, we could hire all those roles separately, but hey we want a rockstar ninja capable of everything who's willing to work for less than market rate.
DevOps full-stack carpenter.
What are the dimensions of the house? How much will it weigh? What's the lay of the land? Is the soil compaction sufficient? Are there city utilities, or will we have to hook up a well and sewer?
It's about 2000 sq ft.
Those aren't dimensions.
Oh, just figure it out! We need it installed by Tuesday, we're giving it to the client then.