Ask HN: Help me find this quote | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Help me find this quote

12 pointsporker6 comments

Long shot. I recently read (or heard in a conference talk) something along the lines of:

"Building is taking something fluid and making it concrete. Ideas are flexible but computers aren't. Developers have to be pedantic as the computer works in absolutes."

It didn't make much of an impact until today, when I was having to explain to a client why I needed to get these details pinned down. As the original is much better than my paraphrase, any idea where it's from?

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I think the paraphrase is pretty good itself! Would be interesting to find the origin though.

Larry Leifer from the Stanford Center for Design Research has some good talks and papers around on the more general design process, under the theme "Dancing with Ambiguity" that I quite like. The general theme is the process of going from ideas (or even a problem, before ideas are set) to a product. Coming a bit from a context of hardware/ mechanical design.

Example (1 hour lecture, but really good user-centric design, especially for design teams): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N38_XgoL28k

Thanks! Going back through my video history it could be a @bcantrill talk, but sounds a bit too client focused for his topics. I've queued your recommended YouTube video to watch next :)

Perhaps not what you're thinking of, but it reminds me of this quote from Kevlin Henney:

"There is an art, craft and science to programming that extends well beyond the program. The act of programming marries the discrete world of computers with the fluid world of human affairs. Programmers mediate between the negotiated and uncertain truths of business and the crisp, uncompromising domain of bits and bytes and higher constructed types."

http://www.slideshare.net/Kevlin/cool-code/4

When a foundation needs 300 yards, you don't want all fifty mixers arriving at 7am Monday morning. I guess that's why I'm having trouble seeing the paraphrased idea as adding business value to the client. As with concrete, current professional programming practice for projects where the client doesn't hand over a requirements document when it's time to start banging out code is based on JIT'ing the casting into stone. Having something clever to say, isn't a way of listening to the client.

Good luck.

Here's one I use:

“An idea can only become a reality once it is broken down into organized, actionable elements.”

― Scott Belsky"

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