Rube Goldberg is more about doing things in absurdly complicated fashion,
rather than making the most efficient machine--which is how I feel about
some of my vba+Autoit creations, but at the point I'm doing them it's the
only way I know. But your point is well taken, seeing as a lot of software
is entirely about automating task drudgery--and I often ask myself why
didn't I do it right the first time?? when I notice how much manual labor I
could have been avoiding.

Regards,
Shockley



"Trent Argante" wrote in message
...
shockley, very astute of you. I have not heard of this Goldberg fellow,
so I read his bio on the net.

His observation is the same in nature as my long running concept of
"Harder, Sooner Vs. Easier, Faster". For example, my boss will give me a
task, I'll suggest writing a procedure that will take 4 hours, but will
minimize the actual task-time to under five minutes; but he wants it in
an hour. So, I work harder to get it done sooner instead of writing the
routine (easier) which will result in regular efficiency (faster) in the
future. Thus we tend to expend great amounts of effort to achive the
simplest of results.

It's also the same principle as expending the lesser cost up-front to
meet the immediate need instead of expending a greater cost up-front to
regularly meet the need, which will result in a lesser cost in the long
run.

It's all based on impatience - we want it NOW!

Sorry for the mini-lecture. I love talking about this stuff (if you
couldn't tell). <grin
Nice conversing with you, shockley.
Trent Argante


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