Editing Talk:2021: Software Development

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It seems to me that the cannon is a metaphor for powerful hardware. The drill is a metaphor for elegant and efficient code. The computer is so powerful that the fact that the elegance or efficiency of the code is irrelevant to how it is actually used.[[User:Zeimusu|Zeimusu]] ([[User talk:Zeimusu|talk]]) 15:48, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi, first time posting ;)
To me it seems that the Title text is an example how after some time and many updates the original solution becomes some kind of abomination. Used in abstruse ways for something it was never intended for just because it works and is a quick and simple fix. After some time one always ends up doing unnecessary and arbitrary things in order to get what you actually wanted to achive. Like loading projectiles into a cannon just to use it as a battering ram. {{unsigned ip|162.158.91.137}}

:Agreed. The current rush to monetize distributed crypto-token ledgers smacks of this to me. Rather than focus on refining the protocols involved (which is hard) many projects seem to focus merely on implementing the protocols in any half-@$$ed way that appears legitimate enough on the surface to attract investment capital & turn a profit for some insider. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 16:49, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Don't forget the fact that no one wants to figure out how to use the elegant drill, but instead use it for its most obvious if least elegant piece--the stationary pointy bit. -Todd 7/18/2018 17:32 UTC {{unsigned ip|172.69.69.88}}

The way I understand this, Hairy had the cannon done already to make holes in the wall, the typical brute force solution to the problem. But he needed ammo of a certain weight and gave that task to Cueball. Cueball then made a drill, an elegant solution that would do the job better than the canon. Hairy sees the drill and doesn't care about all the fancy functions, all he needed was an object of the proper weight to put 500 of them in the already built cannon. In programming, this shows either a reluctance from Hairy to adapt to the better solution and insist on using the brute force approach. Or, it shows how often programmers tend to make things way more complicated than is needed. Cueball went to remake a new solution for the problem when all he was supposed to do was make a cannonball of the proper weight.-Vince23 17:46, 18 July 2018 (UTC) {{unsigned|Vince23}}

This also shows the results of not clearly defining terms. Cueball interpreted 'drill' to mean 'a hand held drilling machine' whilst Hairy toolkit to mean a 'drill bit'. So when Cueball delivers his component, Hairy just uses it as a 'dumb' piece of ammo. [[User:RIIW - Ponder it|RIIW - Ponder it]] ([[User talk:RIIW - Ponder it|talk]]) 22:31, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I have a slightly different take. You develop a tool (drill or accounting application) that solves the problem. Then you develop a meta-tool (cannon or cloud-based services or Container software) that bundles simple tools and throws them at the same problem. The comic is not too effective in making the point. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 14:43, 20 July 2018 (UTC)


Automatic-Drill Cannon is my new favorite impractical weapon. [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 01:44, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

::Sorry if this is amazingly off topic, but is that an automatic-drill cannon or an automatic drill-cannon? Like a Gatling gun for power tools? -Milliways 3:38, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

:::Not off topic at all; It's a cannon which fires automatic drills, therefore it's an automatic-drill cannon. An automatic drill-cannon would automatically fire drills. While it's possible (especially given the motorized base) that the cannon is automatic, we ''know'' that the drill is automatic. 
::: Nice name, by the way. 
:::[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 16:41, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

It is so fitting that this comic came out on the same day as Minecraft 1.13, an update that was incredibly rushed due to a stupid deadline. An update that contains many amazing features and code cleanups and rewrites, but also crashes, save corruptions, lots of bugs and lag, etc. An update that was meant to mainly fix bugs and clean up code, but ended up getting merged with another feature update, which caused most of this mess. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 08:22, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Definitely seems make more sense if you consider the person on the left to be the software developer and the person on the right to be the user, doesn't it?  But equally valid if the person on the left is the hardware developer and the person on the right is the programmer. [[User:Swhitlock|Swhitlock]] ([[User talk:Swhitlock|talk]]) 18:20, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

:It makes most sense if these are two software developers who each have been given part of a task, with ill defined boundaries between the parts. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.134.34|162.158.134.34]] 06:27, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

:I think it also makes sense if the left is a software developer & the right is a hardware or UX developer. [Develop innovative code process -> Ignore finer points of process -> Implement a crude solution using brute hardware power & a kludge] seems to be a pretty common scenario. Modern computers running Windows™ or Linux could be considered an example of this, as both contain brilliant snippets of code implemented in cumbersome, inelegant, or less-than-efficient ways. (Mac might do this too, but I wouldn't know.) [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 16:41, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Example: Automatic drill <=> database. Cannon <=> foreach (var row in db.execQuery("select * from customer")) if (resultRow["name"] == searchTerm) return true; [[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.248|141.101.77.248]] 23:45, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I think that this comic represents how programmers put time above cost. Having 500 drills would be expensive but it would significantly reduce the time taken, as they are synchronous. This arguably isn't a bad tactic, but it stops programmers from worrying about cost at all in some cases.
 
I think this also represents front end Vs back end. If you consider the drill as the front-end and the cannon as the back end. The drill is elegant while the cannon is ugly, the same thing often happens in programming. [[User:TrueBoxGuy|TrueBoxGuy]] ([[User talk:TrueBoxGuy|talk]]) 13:19, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

:As a back-end programmer, and with my experience with front-end developers, I certainly disagree :) [[User:Darthstark|Darthstark]] ([[User talk:Darthstark|talk]]) 12:23, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Surely Drill = carefully crafted code, Cannon = docker container, with a similar sentiment to [[1988]]? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.82|162.158.38.82]] 08:19, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Everybody is blaming Cueball for delivering the wrong thing, but we all do this all the time without thinking about it. For instance, YAML has zillions of features that nobody should ever use, but it's still preferred by some people over INI files for configuration because it can represent hierarchical data more clearly. Or how Awk is a complete programming language that could be used to write _anything_ but all anyone uses it for is as a crappy shlexer (like <code>... | awk '{print $4}'</code>). If what you have is a big stockpile of drills, then it's better to just repurpose the drills for the cannon instead of going out of your way to make cannonballs. [[User:Acrisci|Acrisci]] ([[User talk:Acrisci|talk]]) 22:40, 30 July 2018 (UTC)