jonathan@researchcomputingteams.org
This resource first appeared in issue #116 on 02 Apr 2022 and has tags Technical Leadership: Other
The Boring Technology Checklist - Brian Leroux
Is the technology you use boring enough?
I really like Dan McKinley’s 2015 talk, Choose Boring Technology, especially the bit where he recommends frugally and reluctantly allocating “innovation tokens” to use in part of a solution. Using shiny newness is expensive. It means constantly fighting against the unknown and solving problems you didn’t know you were going to have. It’s swimming upstream.
This is especially true in research computing! The researchers are solving a new problem, using a new technique. That means the underpinnings should be rock solid and reliable. If there’s something surprising in the output of a result, is that due to intriguing new behaviour in the system being studied, or is it brokenness in the researcher’s new method? Wherever it is, it shouldn’t be from new libraries or systems you’ve unnecessarily provided because you were really excited about using them. That stuff should be capital-B Boring wherever at all possible.
Leroux provides a checklist to ensure that the technology you are choosing is boring enough. Less cheekily, its a way of highlighting common downsides of choosing a new and cool-looking tool that doesn’t have the history, documentation, and well-understood workarounds of a solution that’s been around the block.
