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by routerl 490 days ago
'"Tradition" is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back.'

This is, by far, my most conservative opinion. Credit to Donald Kingsbury for the quote.

Honorable mention re: the same problem, "dogfooding"[0] is gone from the software industry, which is why users often feel like they're getting suckered by the companies they patronize; the decision makers, who don't themselves use the product, absolutely see the users as suckers.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food

4 comments

I found this on scurvy and forgotten traditions to be fascinating https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm
Dogfooding is still alive in companies like Microsoft; they just ignore all the feedback. There have been numerous comments about that by its employees in HN threads here. I propose that process be called "dogshitting" instead.
Dogbarfing? They rejected the dogfood for poor quality, but they had to eat it again.
Imo: get the problem back is a small price to pay to learn the lesson again. If you didn't write it down the first time, remove the tradition and next time write it down. Now you do the right thing AND for the right reason.
Reminds me of that AI company that didn't want it's applicants too use AI in the process. Like... you made this monster.