The Vizzini school of bad management

• Am I going mad or did the word "think" escape your lips?
• Hurry up
• Inconceivable
• Faster!
• You know what a hurry we're in
• I'm waiting!
• Catch up with us quickly
• I do not accept excuses
• Did I make it clear that your job is on the line?
• There will be no one to hear you scream
• Stop doing that. We can relax, it's almost over

The Princess Bride

is an excellent book by William Goldman (isbn 0-7475-4518-9). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

It's still my favourite book in all the world. And more than ever, I wish I had written it.

This is my favourite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

Miracles. Giants. True love.

Eyes like the sea before a storm.

We are but poor circus performers.

Absolutely, totally, and, in all other ways, inconceivable

Then one morning, Inigo was gone. In his place were three words: "I must learn" on a note pinned to his pillow.

I am not left-handed.

What you do not smell is called iocane powder.

Don't you rush me, sonny, you rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.

I AM THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS AND THERE WILL BE NO SURVIVORS.

Agile A-Z Keynote

I attended the excellent Agile .NET 2011 conference in Ghent, Belgium this week. Jason Gorman pulled out at the last minute and Erik asked me if I'd step in and do the keynote. I said yes of course and prepared this on the train+plane there.

An Agile A to Z

View more presentations from JonJagger.

QCon Deliberate Practice video

Videos are like buses. None for ages then two come along at once. I did this talk, on Deliberate Practice at the QCon conference in London earlier in the year (it's only just been put online). It's an extension of my 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know entry.

We'll never survive!

One of the books for the accu charity book stall is my copy of Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck (1st edition).
One of the entries in its bibliography is a quote from The Princess Bride.
Buttercup and Westley are about to enter the Fire Swamp and face it's three terrors: the Flame Spurts, the Lightning Sand, and the Rodents Of Unusual Size (R.O.U.S.'s).







Buttercup says to Westley (Kent misquotes slightly here):

We'll never survive

and Westley replies:

Nonsense - you're only saying that because no one ever has.

I just love this line. And I love Kent's idea of putting a film quote in the bibliography. I love that it's in the bibliography in a section called "Attitude". I think Kent is hinting at their courage - that depending on your attitude life can be an adventure. After surviving the flame spurts Westley says to Buttercup:

Well now, that was an adventure.

And a bit further on he says:

The Fire Swap certainly does keep you on your toes.

Just before facing the R.O.U.S.'s Buttercup says:

We'll never survive - we may as well die here.

To which Westley replies:

No. No. We have already succeeded.

I love that line too. (I pretty much love every line of the film.) Again it's about attitude. As they make it out of the fire swamp Buttercup says (almost in disbelief):

We did it.

And Westley says:

Now, was that so terrible?

Attitude.
Caring about yourself.
Caring about others.
Caring about the code.

The Label Law

The Label Law is one of Jerry Weinberg's laws from The Secrets of Consulting

The name of the thing is not the thing.
...our tendency to attach a name - a label - to every new thing we see, and then to treat that thing as if the label were a true and total description...
Once the stereotyped label is attached, the problem becomes much harder to solve.

I was reminded of the Label Law recently when watching, you've guessed it, The Princess Bride (one of my favourite films) with my son Patrick. There's a scene where the Man in Black (aka Westley) explains to Buttercup how he has become the Dread Pirate Roberts:

The name was the important thing for inspiring the necessary fear. You see, no one would surrender to the Dread Pirate Westley.

The Label Law also reminds me of the apocryphal story of the man who, lacking any cheese, baited his mousetrap with a picture of some cheese, only to find the next day he had caught a picture of a mouse.

Richard Feynman knew the difference between something and its name. In his book the pleasure of finding things out he recalls spending time with his Dad in the woods:

Looking at the bird he says, "Do you know what that bird is? It's a brown throated thrush; but in Portuguese it's a … in Italian a …, " he says "in Chinese it's a …, in Japanese a …," etcetera. "Now," he says, "you know in all the languages you want to know what the name of the bird is and when you've finished with all that," he says, "you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You only know about humans in different places and what they call the bird. Now," he says, "let's look at the bird."

If you like The Label Law you might also like:

• The Options Trap
• Bill Bailey's Law

The Options Trap

one option is a trap,
two options is a dilemma,
three options is a choice.

I recall Jerry Weinberg saying this (or something very similar) during either an AYE conference or his Problem Solving Leadership course. I'm think I've also read it in one of Jerry's books, or was it Virginia Satir, but despite a reasonably thorough search I can't put my finger on it. (If you can locate the source in one of his books I'd appreciate an email).

I think software developers are prone to falling into options traps. If someone presents me with a choice between A and B I can easily be unknowingly coerced into thinking the only choices are A or B. And of course that's not true. I can choose A and B. Or maybe C. Or D. Or maybe make no choice at all. And of course, I often fall into the trap when presenting the options myself.

I was reminded of the options trap when watching The Princess Bride with my son Patrick the other day. There is a superb scene where the Man in Black arranges a battle of wits (to the death) with Vizzini. He shows Vizzini some iocane powder (iocane is odourless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadly poisons known to man - in other words it's invisible just like software is, well except for the dissolving in liquid bit). But I digress. The Man in Black takes two goblets of wine and a full packet of iocane powder and turns his back on Vizinni. A moment later, he turns to face Vizzini again and the packet of iocane powder is empty. He says to Vizzini

All right: where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right and who is dead.

The Man in Black never explicitly says it (the wording is very precise), but Vizzini is unknowingly led (and so are you when you watch the film the first time) to believe that there are only two options; either the iocane powder is in Vizzini's goblet of wine, or the iocane powder is in the Man in Black's goblet of wine. If you've watched the film you know that there is a third option. I won't spoil the scene for you by telling you what the third option is - if you want to know I suggest googling Mithridates VI of Pontus. Or watching the film!