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Comment by CraigJPerry | Hacker News Reader

>> Because engineers are human beings who often form an emotional attachment to their creations, confrontations over large-scale purges of the source tree are not uncommon. Some might protest, "What if we need that code later?"

> the paragraph starting with "Because engineers are human beings who often form an emotional attachment to their creations, ..." is really out of place.

FWIW I’ve definitely encountered developers clinging to things when the business context has completely changed. I totally recognise the scenario in the original text.

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Sure, but if we argue that these values and principles should be applicable, then it should also be possible to make an argument why and not blame the irrationality on emotions.

It seems more likely that bounded rationality is at play here, where different parties only know part of the picture (and fail to bring these together and find out what would be best globally.)

I don’t follow why we shouldn’t blame the irrationality on emotions. Emotions are massively important, and people do irrational things because of them all the time. Why pretend that’s not true?

The question is not whether emotions can cause people to be irrational. They can!

Not every case of irrational behavior is caused by emotions though. And when we are making an argument that people are acting against their own interests, it may help to ponder what makes them do so. All the more when we are claiming principles and values that should be accepted by everyone.

"If you don't believe me you are acting irrational / it's because you are emotionally attached" does not seem to be an attitude that gets closer to real causes in a discussion on how to best seek simplicity, but rather a recipe for avoiding discussion or a "thought-terminating cliche."

There must be a better argument for convincing people to let go of code / clean up etc.

But, if it is the truth, then it seems to me like it does get us closer to the truth. I don’t think irrational means there is no explanation for the behavior, it’s closer to saying that the behavior is not in anyone’s best interests, it’s not thought through.

Clinging to code you wrote is a very natural thing to do, there are many reasons we do it, and most of the time it’s irrational.

You’re assuming the conclusion. What may appear to be irrational emotional behavior can be completely rational under a different set of information.

Fear, I think. It's unpleasant to know someone is harming the common good because they're being selfish. Some people can handle that knowledge and admit "well someone clearly owed their promotion to a legacy module/abandoned code/unused system". Whereas others are that someone or are afraid of that someone, and they make up a bunch of excuses.

This dynamic comes up often in engineering management.

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