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nomelyesterday at 6:10 PM4 repliesview on HN

There was another, much older, post similar to this about, I think, "beans" that engineers use to solve problems. If I remember correctly, it was something like, solving a problem costs "beans", and engineers will always use most all of their "beans" to solve a given problem, because it's somewhat "easy" until you run out of them.

Maybe it wasn't beans? But, I've been looking for it for years.


Replies

PyWoodyyesterday at 6:14 PM

Not what you're after, but your talk of beans reminded me of Taco Bell Programming. [0]

[0] https://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2010/10/taco-bell-progr...

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bchyesterday at 10:43 PM

I’m vaguely recalling something - and I think the beans might’ve also represented vetos, so one had a limited number of objections to other people’s ideas… quick search revealing nothing so far, though.

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cwnythyesterday at 6:43 PM

This is where efficiency can be applied in two distinct ways. On the one hand, if using more beans means you can solve the problem more quickly, then it is more efficient to the problem solver to do so.

But if beans are scarce, and that's where you can try to find ways to use less beans per function, then the goal is to make the function more efficient by using less beans.

contingenciesyesterday at 8:09 PM

You misspelled 'beers'. A boring technology.