[skydhash]

> You keep saying "the premise", but "the premise" is my criticism. I understand that the author is presenting the situation as if Chet is getting out of scope and uselessly complex. My criticism is that in the described situation, the author should recognised that this premise is just an assumption, and that he should ask for more information.

There’s a premise that you know can be true. There’s a logical reasoning that you don’t seem to be against. There’s also a conclusion that you also don’t disagree in your comments.

If the whole thread is you arguing about the premise and saying there may be a chance of it not being true, then this is not a discussion. It’s speculative fiction.

[cauch]

> If the whole thread is you arguing about the premise and saying there may be a chance of it not being true, then this is not a discussion. It’s speculative fiction.

But it is a really concrete question. Me or other people may be in Chet's situation, so it is important that you just not answer "if you are not over-engineering, then it's a different premise, so it does not count, you don't really exist".

We both agree that over-engineering is bad. I guess you agree that sometimes, someone may propose a different solution that is not over-engineering? My question, and it is not a trick question, is: can you explain me what this person should do in this situation.

It is not a trick question, it is real: my impression from this discussion is that if I'm in a situation where I have a constructive proposal, not out-of-scope, totally within the project goal, that will help the situation reaching its goal more smoothly, then whatever I say, you will just answer me "you ain't gonna need it", the same way the author did to Chet.

Let's imagine that Chet is speaking to the author of the article, and let's imagine that Chet does not want to plan for a new offroad motor pushing a trailer. Let's imagine that Chet is talking about the current project, its exact current goal, that within this project, they plan to use a standard Sedan 500 pounds engine, and that Chet is charged by the author of the article of installing wheels, but that the author has chosen a simplistic approach and that, as a consequence, these wheels will not be able to support a 500 pound engine. For example, the author of the article has asked Chet to do a "simple-on-axle-mounting" approach, and that car engineers have demonstrated that for more than 400 pounds engine, you need a more complex "double-corkscrew-mounting" (I made this up of course). Installing the wheels is the current task, and installing the engine will happen in 3 weeks. How can Chet approach the author of the article?

In the article, Chet approach the author by saying "I could do this simplistic thing now but in 3 weeks that will be insufficient so since we’re going to need this more complicated thing I want to do it now". What should have he said instead? Why this sentence is bad and what make this sentence sounds like Chet is talking about something out of scope? The author does not know that the "simple-on-axis-mounting" approach is discredited. What in this simple sentence informs the author of the article that Chet is not trying to inform them that this approach is not correct and that he is instead talking about out-of-scope over-engineering?

[skydhash]

Trying to answer your question.

Your example does not work with the article because the simplistic approach is already proven to be an ok design. The wheel will support the engine. The complex approach (maybe a non standard suspension) is for an hypothetical scenario that Chet believes will occur in 3 weeks. That scenario is not the mounting of the engine which is already planned and scoped.

You don't delay a project because of an hypothetical scenario. What you do is evaluate and present the risks and a possible solutions. You don't rush in the implementation unilaterally. That's a cowboy mindset.

> What in this simple sentence informs the author of the article that Chet is not trying to inform them that this approach is not correct and that he is instead talking about out-of-scope over-engineering?

  I could do this simplistic thing now

That means the solution is OK and the implementation will provide some value for the customer.

  but in 3 weeks that will be insufficient

How does he know that? Where's the argument, not merely examples as in the rest of the dialogue, but real objective facts and numbers (like there's another requirement that the customers are pressing us). It's very likely that any such situation would have skipped past by when designing the simple approach.

  so since we’re going to need this more complicated thing 

Will we really need it? We know that we don't need it today. What will change in a few week that will make it a requirement? Again what needed here is objective facts. Not what-if scenarios.

  I want to do it now

Why the rush? Why can't it wait for 2 weeks when we can tie the feature to the name of few customers (assuming it's B2B) or market analysis. Why do we need to spend let's say a week on this complicated approach when we can solve the problem in a day or two and ship it.

That's all the questions I would have asked if I was not familiar with the project. But if you're the project lead, the only thing that would have led you to question yourself is if Chet has said the simplistic approach does not work. But it does.

[cauch]

> Your example does not work with the article because the simplistic approach is already proven to be an ok design.

Where is it done? No where in the article the author said "Chet said it will not work in 3 week, so I demonstrated that it will work in 3 weeks". The author just __assume__ it is an ok design.

What I'm telling you is that you and the author are acting in a way that shut down the conversation in case you are right AND in case you wrong.

Your answer to that is "I'm mentally impossible to conceive a scenario where the author missed something, did not realise the 'simple-one-axle-mounting' approach will fail". That is such a red flag.

> The complex approach (maybe a non standard suspension) is for an hypothetical scenario that Chet believes will occur in 3 weeks.

This is not what I ask you. I ask you to say what Chet should say in the situation where Chet is right, where the author design is incorrect and Chet scenario is not hypothetical. You keep twisting back "no but let's just pretend it cannot happen". This is my worry: are you even able to conceive that it can happen?

> That means the solution is OK and the implementation will provide some value for the customer.

What? That is definitively not how normal people would understand this sentence. Are you a native english speaker? According to you "I could do this simplistic thing now but it would not work" is an impossible sentence? Or that this sentence is saying that the solution is OK because the sentence contains "I could do this thing"?

> How does he know that?

Well, that's the point. In this step of this dialog, you don't know yet, and yet you already concluded that Chet does not know and that you know.

> Where's the argument, not merely examples as in the rest of the dialogue, but real objective facts and numbers

Chet is introducing the problem, he is shut down before he can even give his first example. Chet may have plenty of objective facts and numbers, but the author shut down the conversation before it even happen. In this dialog, Chet is __trying__ to bring facts and numbers, starting by a concrete illustration, but he is interrupted before he can do it.

You are so full of it. You are saying "Chet did not arrive and slap the author with a book full of facts, so it is the proof that Chet has no idea of what he is talking about and should be shut down before he can prove this assumption is wrong".

> Will we really need it?

You don't know if you really need it or not, you don't know if Chet has facts and numbers. Because YAGNI is shit, you just assumed that the situation is over-engineer, while you have no idea of what the situation is and stop people who try to explain it to you.

> We know that we don't need it today.

No you don't. You just stop Chet explaining and interrupt him.

> What will change in a few week that will make it a requirement? Again what needed here is objective facts. Not what-if scenarios.

This is what I saying from the start: when Chet reacts like that, the fact that the author does not say "wait a minute, do you have objective facts" is a red flag. The fact that the author goes to the what-if scenario that his design will obviously work, without providing any objective facts, is the problem.

> Why the rush?

Where is there any rush. The situation is extremely simple. The guy say: "hear me you, I think I will be wasting me time doing this". The author answers "shut up" and __assume__ that Chet has no argument.

> That's all the questions I would have asked if I was not familiar with the project. But if you're the project lead, the only thing that would have led you to question yourself is if Chet has said the simplistic approach does not work. But it does.

I saw very experienced devs failing at that all the time. In this article, the author is assuming he has a good understanding of the project and shut down anyone who can bring important information.

Your approach: "I'm the lead, so I cannot be wrong, so I assume Chet is incorrect when he said the simplistic approach will not work" is so bad. Do you even realise that?

You are a perfect example of what I was talking about. What would you have lost in just hearing Chet out? But now, YAGNI is just shit, it pushes people to have this attitude to assume that only them know the truth.

[skydhash]

> According to you "I could do this simplistic thing now but it would not work" is an impossible sentence?

Because that’s not what it said. If someone is talking to me, I don’t invent sentences in my head for them and assume things that they haven’t said.

That’s what you’re doing, inventing a whole situation outside of what the author described because you keep adding things that the author has not mentioned.

I have my interpretation of the dialog. And I agree with the author that Chet should focus on the simple thing now, and je can always wait later to refactor it to handle the future situation.

If you want to discuss an alternate interpretation, do it within the confine of the dialog. Don’t add your own words to it.

[cauch]

> Because that’s not what it said.

What it said is "I could do this simplistic thing now but ... that will be insufficient"

It LITERALLY says that it will not work, that it is not a good solution.

Even if Chet is wrong in his prediction, you quoted Chet and pretended that this thing that Chet is saying is a proof that this solution will work. This is so obviously not at all Chet's opinion.

And I'm sure you are going to INVENT "but Chet does not know what will happen in 3 weeks". Firstly, again, your "proof" is a quote from Chet, who, according to you, demonstrate that this solution is ok while that sentence is used by Chet to explain that the solution is not ok. But secondly, you have no idea why Chet is saying what he is saying, you INVENT that Chet does not know, does not have facts and numbers, while there are tons of real life example where it is easy and correct to predict that in 3 weeks something will not work anymore.

> ... inventing a whole situation outside of what the author described ...

I don't.

In the situation described by the author, is it true, is it factual that Chet thinks it will not work: YES, he is saying exactly that.

Is it factual that Chet is trying to provide more information but the author shut him down before hearing them: YES, this is factual.

Your only little argument is "let's imagine that Chet proposal, that he NEVER explains because he is interrupted, is bad". All I'm saying is that you have no idea what Chet argument is, you just assumed. This is fact. Can you tell me where, factually, in the written dialog, Chet explain his understanding and this understanding is indeed incorrect? Can you point me to these sentences? They don't exist.

You see "3 weeks" and concluded that "it is out of scope and/or over-engineered", which is obviously a bad conclusion as it is very easy to find plenty of example where this conclusion is totally wrong.

I don't want an alternate interpretation, there is no need for it. Does the author shut Chet down before Chet explains himself? YES. There is nothing to interpret, it's just a fact. Then, based on that, you said things that are BS, such as "Chet said '3 weeks' so it is the proof that it is out-of-scope". I then gave you a counter-example showing that your reasoning is wrong, and your only argument was "you invented this example so it does not count".

[skydhash]

> What it said is "I could do this simplistic thing now but ... that will be insufficient"

> It LITERALLY says that it will not work, that it is not a good solution

You have a strange definition of insufficient.

> Can you tell me where, factually, in the written dialog, Chet explain his understanding and this understanding is indeed incorrect

Both the author and I never said that the complicated thing is wrong or incorrect. YAGNI is basically saying “not now”. Meaning we can revisit when the situation calls for it, but not today.

YAGNI is a matter of priority and resources allocation. You don’t solve problems you don’t have or unlikely risks.

Do you set up a cold room in your house and buy food for the next month because you know you will be hungry then? No. You buy a fridge and groceries for the next few days. Not because a catastrophic event can’t happen, but because your budget is limited and/or you have better things to do with that money.

Complicated things cost more than simple things (to build and maintain) and take longer to ship and produce value. The only reason to not go with simple thing is when it does not work, not when it’s insufficient. We already know it does not handle every little feature, but it will work for now.