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Comment by hidelooktropic | Hacker News Reader

So you do things one step at a time and timebox as you go? This method probably doesn't need its own name. In fact I think that's just what timeboxing is.

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FWIW Mikado seems to be the name of that game where you pick up one stick at a time from a pile, while trying to not disturb the pile. (I forget the exact rules). So it isn’t as if somebody is trying to name this method after themselves or something, it is just an attempt at an evocative made up term. Timeboxing is also, right? I mean, timeboxing is not recognized by my spell checker (I’d agree that it is more intuitive though).

Mikado is the name of an opera (by Gilbert and Sullivan) in which someone is deemed to have been executed without actually having been executed. Sounds like an ideal test strategy to me: yes, all the tests were executed, just not actually run.

when I saw the title I was expecting a reference to the opera. was wondering if they were somehow going to work in the exchange "Besides, I don't see how a man can cut off his own head." "A man might try." in reference to gradually removing bits of the old code.

Plockepinn in Swedish, approximately "pickastick".

Edit: thought I read it was of Scandinavian origin, hence my comment. But Wikipedia said european origin. Well well.

In the US, it was a game called "pick up sticks", and it was tedious and sometimes impossible.

So, this method is well-named at least! :)

I suspect it was invented the first time a parent dropped a pile of sticks because their bored kids were distracting them. “Ok kids, new game, pick those sticks up as quietly and tediously as possible.”

There are important additions beyond timeboxing, at least according to the post. Notably, reverting your changes if you weren't able to complete the chosen task in the time box and starting over on a chosen subset of that task. I can imagine that part has benefits, though I haven't tried it myself.

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