Management is always managed by the Peter Principle.

A client with s very low budget wanted a solution for their filing. We suggested they could get more bang for their bucks with preprinted paper forms, pens and a cabinet than going for software. They were not amused.

In terms of Mars

• Client wants a robot to go to Mars
• Project is budgeted and sold to send a Mars Rover
• Work starts and after successful test the robot is shown to customer. Customer states he wants to send a Mechwarriors in a drop ship, not a little Pathfinder.
• Panic, change requests, money being discussed, rockets are being strapped together with duct tape and the rover is bolted on an old Asimo that is being rebuilt into the smallest Mechwarrior ever the day before launch
• Mech Asimo lands successfully, stumbles and falls on a rock after three steps
• Customer disappointed

They’re real. I also encounted one.

“It’s already in the demo you guys just did so why do you need weeks to make it?”

We’re in trouble when it learns to debug.

Now start adding the “Well yes, but if” demands until the system inevitably breaks.

But it’s pretty fun when the customer says your program does it wrong and you pull out that old Excel, plug in the data and their Excel does exactly the same as your program. It makes the discussion about billable hours a lot easier.

Dump to an Excel sheet and ask them to make a formula for “active”. A client that can’t use Excel deserves to be teased and be charged extra.

https://youtu.be/M1D2zTJhIss

That’s the one for me, from Spider-Man no way home. Keep adding more stuff to a complex working until reality itself breaks.

Even SQL was originally called SEQUEL, Structured English QUEry Language. They got sued for the name and changed it to SQL. It was also pitched to retrieve data with plain language.

It’s very common. Every few years there is some no-code platform claiming no developers are needed anymore in any sector, not just web dev. Invariably these only work if you stay on the narrow path and of course the customer asks something outside of the easy path after the first demo so a lot of work by devs are needed to make of happen.

AI is just one more like that, but with hype on steroids.

You’d think by now Jean-Luc Picard would be a well known example and systems are able to deal with it.

Yeah, this is his daughter

“We call her Carrie, because of the carriage return.”

You can also try to give the child NULL as middle name for additional fun.

Israeli parts

Put an iPhone against his head,

pulled my trigger

Now he’s dead

fatal error: Too many errors emitted, stopping now

I usually say what unit of measurement we’re counting in: days, weeks or months. For more detail, more specs are needed.