Comment by markus_zhang
3 days ago
The title reminds me of an interesting ancient Chinese anecdote. And it is also a bit ironic that Toyota has gotten itself into some scandals recently (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wwj1p2wdyo).
King Wen of Wei asked Bian Que:
“Of you three brothers, all physicians, who is the finest in the healing art?”
Bian Que replied:
“My eldest brother is the finest; my second brother comes next; I, Bian Que, am the least of the three.”
King Wen said:
“May I hear why?”
Bian Que answered:
“My eldest brother sees illness in the spirit, before it has taken shape, and removes it unseen; therefore his name is known only within our household.
My second brother treats illness when it is but a hair’s breadth from appearing; therefore his name does not travel beyond our village lane.
As for me, Bian Que: I pierce the blood vessels, administer strong medicines, and cut open the flesh. Thus, by such visible acts, my name has spread among the lords.”
"My eldest brother prevents bugs from appearing before they ever arise, so his skills are only known to the dev team he's on.
"My second brother casually fixes bugs as soon as they appear, so his skills are known to the entire tech department.
"As for me, I rush around everyday putting out fires everywhere, so everyone in the company knows of me."
or a simpler version: "A stitch in time saves nine...but I charge by the stitch"
Can we measure preventive medicines or projects which have been designed with care from the beginning? Can we have metrics and measure/compare projects over lifetime production bugs?
This reminds me of perverse Amazon practice of hiring people only to fire them to meet quota. This could have been avoided if they measured the average lifetime of hired individuals. If they were fired the very next firing round, it means the process is broken. Ideally a fixed percentage of freshly hired developers should have moved upward displacing senior slacking developers.
literally one of the main reasons america spends so much on healthcare
And law.
Can you share the source of the anecdote? I tried to find it in Zhuangzi and was not successful.
Best I can tell, it's originally from Heguanzi: https://ctext.org/he-guan-zi/shi-xian
Beautiful text. By the way, I can't thank enough the maintainers at ctext.org. What a beautiful work they do.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
How many euros or kilograms is it?
I would say in nice round numbers 50 grams prevention for a kilo of cure. That is my only criticism of the metric system, it doesn't often coincide with quantities handy for every day use, so makes poor 'sayings'.
Three Troy ergs.
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> And it is also a bit ironic that Toyota has gotten itself into some scandals recently (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wwj1p2wdyo).
the article is from June 2024. this is "recently"?
Yes? Toyota has been producing vehicles since the 30s, so two years ago is quite recent within context.