Playing "guess which wire I just pulled" isn't fun

Even less fun when the boxes are half a world away. Yeah, this was my weekend and a large chunk of today. This will segue into another post on design and (unintended) changes in design, and end user expectations at some point. Its hard to maintain a concept of an SLO if some of the underlying technology you are relying upon to deliver these objectives (like, I dunno, a wire?), suddenly disappears on you. Or even more interestingly, when someone needs something (also like a wire), sees it connected to your box, and decides to take it. There is a reason we do what we do, and a reason we do it the way we do it. I am (continually) blown away by the “but you don’t need X here, we’ll provide it for you”, as when we get there, we discover that no, they really can’t provide it for us, and yes, the system design requires that to function. This is when, to steal what a customer once opined here, we resort to cowboy engineering. Or to put it another way, when you are up to your ass in alligators, its sometimes difficult to remember that the objective is to drain the swamp. But success is defined only in terms of draining the swamp, not the number of alligators you have to overcome. Sometimes (ok, often) the alligators are self-imposed … and that’s even more exacerbating. There is a reason we do what we do, and why we do it the way we do it. Its not to sell more kit. Its to deliver functional extreme performance, and manageable systems. Off to class now … need a break.