Hacker News Reader

Comment by jstummbillig | Hacker News Reader

Certainly, but don't get confused: You are not doing the thing, until you do the thing.

There are many ways to do the thing. There are many more ways to not do the thing.

Au contraire! Almost all the time you spend doing the thing is actually doing the things required before the final completion of the thing. I've taken to calling this "the work before the work" and it's at least 90% of the work.

Example: I get asked at the start of a project to provide ModbusTCP comms mapping for a new control panel, so that the client can start integrating it into their SCADA system. It's just a spreadsheet, maybe 100 rows, how hard could it be? They need it right now, why am I telling them it'll take 6 months?

Typing the addresses and descriptions into the spreadsheet is 'the work', and it only takes an afternoon, but it can't start until we do the work before the work:

- To document the ModbusTCP mapping I need to the PLC program

- To finish the PLC program I need the electrical drawings

- To finish the electrical drawings, the electrical engineer needs the device list, datasheets for all the devices, and the functional spec

- To finish the device list and functional spec, we need to agree with the client exactly what we're building and what it's meant to do

None of these things are 'the work' but all of them are 'the work before the work' and usually nobody wants to do, to wait for, or pay for this work.

Yes in all the environments I've been in this is nearly the entire job. But I work in embedded...

Need to verify feature X - okay, let me just -

- Find the list of CPs needed

- Get a recent source tree

- Acquire a board

- Flash board

- Get CPs

- Manually assign IP and bring up SSHD to the device so I'm not working over serial

- Build and SCP the rebuilt thing to the device

- Find whatever byzantine command you need to run it to verify it

- Of course it doesn't work, ask your coworker

- Oh did you remember to flub the flabnabber? echo "1" > /dev/i2c5 then restart the flabnabber-daemon

- Run the fking thing and it works

- 3 hours has passed

Wow is working in embedded great. But I think that this is basically everything. The time isn't building the shelf, it's figuring out exactly which hinges are right for what I want it to do, it's measuring and measuring and sanding, it's multiple runs to home depot.

ALL of this _is_ "doing the thing". They are all prerequisites and as such are part of the task.

> - Oh did you remember to flub the flabnabber? echo "1" > /dev/i2c5 then restart the flabnabber-daemon

Ah dammit I always forget the flabnabber.

10/10 authentic embedded development experience.

> $ echo "1" > /dev/i2c5

Permission denied.

> $ sudo bash -c 'echo "1" > /dev/i2c5'

I forget every time

That's right, you're not producing paperclips unless one minute you have metal wire and the next minute you have a paperclip.

The ways in which you can do things around, but never actually producing a single paperclip are infinite.

That's true, but the number of paperclips you'll produce if you only devote effort to things that directly produce paperclips is also very low.

It can be really difficult to strike that productive balance.

Somebody once said in light of this dilemma: Do things that don't scale.

This never meant: "It's fantastic if things don't scale". It means: "Trying to start by doing things that scale is probably bad". I mostly believe that.

I also believe that in order to bootstrap a viable system, start with system 1. The OP is partially sniping at people who creating all kinds of elaborate structures for systems 2-5, without attending to the first order of business, which is system 1. I've been guilty of this myself.

But it's easy to find dysfunctional organizations that focus almost exclusively on System 1, and it looks like grinding, hustle, "doing the thing", being stuck at CMM Level 1, and in my experience, it leads to burnout. So there has to be a balance.

There's "producing paperclips" and then there's "increasing paperclip production". Then there's "making money in the paperclip business".

Oh you are absolutely doing the thing in this situation, as in you're in the process of doing it, somewhere between 1% and 99% of the way there depending on the context. You haven't done the thing until you actually fully do the thing, it is true. But most of the work could be in this preparatory meta work, and of course it means nothing without the final all important step of doing the thing, but there you have it, doing the thing before having fully done the thing.

Redefining doing the thing into a complex process, where actually doing the thing is only one step of the process, and then other steps, is not doing the thing.

Buying the wire and the pliers is not doing the thing either, but you can't do the thing if you don't have them.

It's still not doing the thing

How far along are you on the action item?

The item is all done. I'm waiting for the action.

You can’t know in the moment whether the thing you are doing is doing the thing. In retrospect alone does it become clear.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com