[Libre-soc-dev] daily kan-ban update 10nov2020

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 8:46 AM Jacob Lifshay <programmerjake at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry, I don't think it's possible (at my rate of coding at least) to
> get something working that could generate those markdown tables in
> Python, C++, or Rust. I'd estimate at least 2-3 days.

the actual table-format/printing?  each row is one line of code:
    return ' | '.join(d) + "|"

so you must mean the creation of the data going into the tables.  and
that is why i said *don't* go overboard by trying to actually
"compute" the actual data: *ONLY* output *TIMING* information.  *NOT*
make it a "full hardware-level pipeline simulator".

if the amount of code that you are thinking of writing for this task
is more than 250 lines as a first implementation *it's completely and
utterly the wrong approach*.

but you did not listen to what i was saying and wanted to develop a
full hardware-level pipeline simulator, and to do it in rust wasm.


> > what you've done is *ignore* the questions, and are developing
> > something that hasn't been discussed or evaluated.
>
> Sorry, I was under the impression that the plan was to build a program
> for generating markdown tables, then we could both play around with it

which implies *not in c++ or rust* as i explained multiple times and
you did not respond, acknowledge, or take into account.


> and discuss the generated output.

yes.

however - and - again - i have written to you (either privately or in
the bugtracker) that you do not have the experience necessary to
"pre-assess" (estimate) the amount of time it takes to implement
something.

from experience we have found that your time estimates are usually 100
to 1000% out (2 to 10 times too short).



> Since there are apparently questions
> I haven't answered, would you please point me to them? I've kinda lost
> track of where exactly they are.

they are all in the bugreport.  can i recommend taking the time to go
over them with someone else?  they should be able to help you evaluate
what i am talking about.

because you weren't answering questions at the time that i asked them,
i repeated them (trying different words).  this then forced me into a
position of spending yet more time asking the questions again.

each time i asked the same questions it took more precious time to write them.

i even had to spend time asking people around me for advice, "i'm
really concerned that jacob is not answering the questions and not
engaging.  can you please advise me on what to do, here?"

this again took up precious time.

that time is "resource" that is gone forever and cannot be recovered.


i have trained as a Software Engineer.  the process involves analysing
- in this order:

* Requirements Analysis
* writing a Requirements Specification
* Functional Analysis
* writing a Functional Specification
* FINALLY - implementation (which often has its own cycle starting at
"rapid prototype" etc.)

an iterative approach on that can result in rewrites or abandonment of
all and any of those stages.  in this case, with the idea being that
there *is* no "full stable implementation" - it's for the purposes of
"discussion".

by having these stages it becomes easy to drop "time estimates" on top.

because it was interesting to you (you wanted to learn rust-wasm,
which is fine) you bypassed the critical stages which allow us to
assess properly whether the time it would take would be worth it.

in addition you added an extra requirement - to develop a full
hardware-level pipeline simulator - without consensus.... *and then
went straight into it*.  again, because it's interesting to you, and
again without doing any time estimates or an evaluation of the
immediate value.

now, the *long-term* value of what you're working on might be very
high, however can you see that the entire original discussion has
effectively terminated?  where in *10 days* has there been *any*
discussion of the original matter?


as i also have Asperger's it took me a long time to learn to re-focus
what i considered "enjoyable" onto a much more focussed
"goal-orientated" approach.  i enjoy doing things which get us towards
the *goal*.

i also used to much more enjoy doing the things that i thought were
"interesting", because i wanted to learn them.  unfortunately,
repeatedly, i found that the complexity of what i had developed was so
great that nobody else could read, understand, or use it.

consequently in order to engage with other people i have had to "dial
back" what i do to much more drastically-simpler code.

bottom line is: this is about being able to focus.  and, i know from
experience that the flickering LCD, substituting for sunlight, also
has a detrimental effect on cognitive behaviour.  it's something we
all need to keep an eye on.

l.