Simple(r) Coffee

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item Simple(r) Coffee

  • One of the duties of an IT Architect is to control the technology complexity.

    What an IT department should look to nurture is pools of expertise to address pockets of ignorance.  If you have uncontrolled technical sprawl then you have pools of ignorance suffocating pockets of expertise.

    In a small organisation there are limits to how you can address staff churn due to boredom.  The job becomes, been there, seen it, done it.  If you allow technology sprawl then you manufacture that constraint because technology used in one area bears little relation to technology in another.  You limit your ability to deploy staff to different areas to offset the boredom or because as the organisation needs more capacity in other areas.

    You could argue the other way, that staff get to learn a fresh technology stack but my experience has been that you get the problem of a senior developer on senior developer pay has the experience of a junior in a pressurised environment that expects senior capabilities.  They are having to learn

    • A new  line-of-business
    • New ways of working
    • New technology (possibly a lot of new technology)
    • New contacts and team members

    Outside of the technical sphere you have a plethora of licencing and possibly vendor complexity.  You security footprint is going to be larger and your requirements for security monitoring and patching is going to be far greater.

     

  • senior on senior pay acting as a junior is a great description. I've seen so many people do this with data stores, or cloud tech. Wanting to use DynamoDB or something else because it worked well for another org. You might have great senior staff that move from junior to senior level expertise in new tech quickly, but unlikely. Most stories on the Internet of people that have had success using some new tech don't quite convey the story of how many (extra) hours it took for those engineers to learn, and how many mistakes they made along the way.

  • Steve, I've been drinking coffee for probably 65 years now, and still prefer a nice clean mug of plain black to anything, just like I prefer my computer apps to be plain and straight forward.  I do rarely get a mocha if we actually go into the Starbucks store.  But you are correct on the need for SIMPLE things.  I typically buy 5 boxes of 72 k-cups ( 360 total ) at Costco when we go in there and they are on sale at $7.00 off per box.  We have k-cup brewers in our master bedroom and in the kitchen for company.

    It always amazes me when I go into the grocery that there are so many brands and varieties of products on the shelves.  "Do we really need all this sh!t?"  My wife usually gives me an email grocery list that often has aisle and bin at our local chain store called 'Martins'.  Their workers are very helpful to this old man, and often will walk entirely across the store to escort me right to the item I'm looking for.

    This reminds me of what I'm sure you all have heard said, 'Use the KISS method', meaning 'Keep it simple, Stupid'.    And another of my favorites is 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

    Just today I have been re-engineering a data conversion/aggregation process that I created a couple years ago after I came up with a new idea while having my coffee in bed earlier.

    Rick
    Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )

  • I tend to prefer black coffee, or a black Americano if it's after 10am when no one is paying attention to the brews anymore.

    I think having some variety, some choice is good. I think it can get a little crazy in some places. I am more likely to tolerate this in places like groceries, where so many people go to get their own thing. In places where we have less people, like most restaurants and shops, I'd prefer less choice, especially when there is a line.

     

    KISS and don't fix things that aren't broken are mantras of mine as well

  • Great article, Steve.

  • Thanks

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