[HN Gopher] Lullaby Language (2006)
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       Lullaby Language (2006)
        
       Author : alexzeitler
       Score  : 17 points
       Date   : 2024-07-23 15:50 UTC (5 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.humansystemsinaction.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.humansystemsinaction.com)
        
       | JadeNB wrote:
       | This seems a lot more like a story of how the writer would like
       | to imagine a productive workshop going than of something that
       | actually did happen; I felt patronized just reading it, and I
       | only had to spend a few minutes on it.
       | 
       | Of course we all have our blind spots, but one of the
       | participants here was an IT manager, and surely any IT manager
       | has read something _like_ RFC 2119
       | (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2119), if not that
       | precise document.
        
         | blowski wrote:
         | Gerald Weinberg was a prolific author in the tech consultancy
         | space, and most of his writing consists of anecdotes like this.
         | He explains his theories by telling stories, the veracity of
         | which isn't the point.
         | 
         | On the specific note, I frequently make these mistakes, despite
         | having read his books and knowing the problem to which he's
         | referring. I say "could you just..." and "we should really do x
         | today". In the abstract, we can all see the problem, yet it's
         | easy to forget in reality.
        
           | JadeNB wrote:
           | > On the specific note, I frequently make these mistakes,
           | despite having read his books and knowing the problem to
           | which he's referring. I say "could you just..." and "we
           | should really do x today". In the abstract, we can all see
           | the problem, yet it's easy to forget in reality.
           | 
           | Oh, sure, I don't mean "no one who has read RFC 2119 will
           | ever use 'should' incorrectly." I mean that I would hope that
           | someone who understands the need to define 'should' correctly
           | would recognize, when looking at a requirements document and
           | _themselves_ singling out the word  'should', that divergent
           | opinions on its meaning could be at issue.
           | 
           | > He explains his theories by telling stories, the veracity
           | of which isn't the point.
           | 
           | I am not so concerned with whether the story _did_ happen as
           | with whether it _could_ happen. I think telling such a story
           | risks giving a misleading idea of the ways of getting people
           | to understand their difference--that  "here, let me define
           | that for you" in such a bald-faced form is a productive post-
           | conflict resolution strategy. (After all, it's what those of
           | us with engineer's disease, or at least I, think _should_
           | resolve a conflict.) More honest, I think, to emphasize the
           | importance of such interventions beforehand than to pretend
           | that people will easily respond amiably to them afterwards.
        
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