[benreesman]

If I was going to re-brand a great idea with a legitimate tweak in emphasis it would be “dogfooding”: the denotational semantics are almost right, but the term combines the wrong emphasis (force yourself to use something intended for others, almost never a recipe for great work) with a mental picture that is less than appetizing.

pg has written about this so extensively and effectively that it would be a waste of any readers time for me to footnote: go read all his essays with an emphasis on the earliest ones if you haven’t: they’re great.

I’m not the writer someone like pg is by a long way and so I’m both making the argument less well and don’t have a great alternative proposal, but I bet someone on HN has a good name for this.

Instead I’ll share a memorable quote from a world-famous chef that stayed with me: Thomas Keller has two restaurants in Northern California: The French Laundry and Bouchon. He’s quoted as saying that “The French Laundry is where I create meals I like to make, Bouchon is where I make meals I like to eat.”

What’s an alternative to “dogfooding” that describes the process of building some simple, lovable, and complete by building something that you yourself prefer to any existing substitute or alternative?