[humourous interjection] Re: long term goals of debian membership

[ferret@phonewave.net]

On 4 Dec 2000, Manoj Srivastava wrote:

> >>"Glenn" == Glenn McGrath <bug1@optushome.com.au> writes:
[snippity-do-dah]
>  Glenn> Will more workers result in a higher quality distribution ?
>  Glenn> Yes. (as long as they all follow policy)
> 
> 	Rubbish. Firstly, quality counts. Secondly, throwing more warm
>  bodies at a problem may make the solution unwieldy, take longer, and
>  result in a shoddier product.
> 
> 	I strongly advice you to read "The Mythical Man Month".
> 
> 	There is a cost associated with managing larger groups of
>  people, and co-ordinating them into an effective team. As the group
>  grows, more effort has to be expended in bureaucratic tasks. 

Same thing about managing networks of computers. You don't place more than
a certain number of nodes per shared segment, because at that point they
drown out all the available bandwidth and the network goes down.

Oh yeah. The 'post-hole' argument sprang to mind even before the words
"The Mythical Man Month" scrolled onto my terminal. ;)

Major premise: 60 men can do a task 60 times as fast as one man.
Minor premise: A man can dig a post hole in 60 seconds.

Conclusion: 60 men can dig one post hole in one second. ;)