Why should I care what color the bikeshed is? (1999)
1–10 of 86 posts
Re: Why should I care what color the bikeshed is? (1999)
#2This article has been shared at least 10 times before on HN over the last decade. Amazing to see people organically find it over the years.
Re: Why should I care what color the bikeshed is? (1999)
#3(1999)
Re: Why should I care what color the bikeshed is? (1999)
#4This article has been shared at least 10 times before on HN over the last decade. Amazing to see people organically find it over the years.
Including this one, 34 times :')
Re: Why should I care what color the bikeshed is? (1999)
#5“Bikeshedding” is one of my favorite terms I’ve learned since becoming a programmer :)
Re: Why should I care what color the bikeshed is? (1999)
#6“Bikeshedding” is one of my favorite terms I’ve learned since becoming a programmer :)
I write code and also cycle. I built a bike shed in my back yard. It has become quite difficult to search for advice on how to actually build a bike shed.
Re: Why should I care what color the bikeshed is? (1999)
#7See also a rebuttal of sorts [1] from Brett Glass, the sole programmer singled out by name in phk's essay:
> Poul-Henning's assertion that all such ideas should be dismissed as "bikeshedding" reflects this dismissive attitude, which can be just as damaging to a software project as taking too many suggestions (or accepting bad ones). At the time of the discussion I mention above, internal squabbles drove several talented programmers from the project, and I was discouraged from becoming more deeply involved in it. FreeBSD was falling behind Linux in features and in popularity. While it has now caught up in terms of technology, it remains an underdog. This is, in part, due to the developers' dismissal as "bikeshedding" of good ideas that Linux adopted much earlier.
Re: Why should I care what color the bikeshed is? (1999)
#8We are happy to be providing this public service :-). I wish the term were better known outside tech; it's useful in so many contexts.
Re: Why should I care what color the bikeshed is? (1999)
#9“Bikeshedding” is one of my favorite terms I’ve learned since becoming a programmer :)
I write code and also cycle. I built a bike shed in my back yard. It has become quite difficult to search for advice on how to actually build a bike shed.
Enlighten us!
What differentiates a good shed from a bike shed?
Re: Why should I care what color the bikeshed is? (1999)
#10Here is the thing. If you have a Convention Manual which calls for a certain color for bike sheds, then you use that. Failing that, if you have several other bike sheds of a certain color, then that's what you use, for consistency with existing bike sheds.
The color of the bike shed only doesn't matter if it's the only bike shed, and there is no documentation which has already settled the matter.