搞砸了的设计_搞砸了

搞砸了的设计

The names Robertson, Allen, Parker, Philips and Goodwin may not mean anything to you, but they all played a part in building the world you live in.

罗伯逊(Robertson)，艾伦(Allen)，帕克(Parker)，飞利浦(Philips)和古德温(Goodwin)的名字对您可能没有任何意义，但它们在建立您所生活的世界中都发挥了作用。

No, they’re not the members of some 70s band that inspired any sort of social or musical movement, and they’re also not a band of infamous robbers that pulled off some big heist back in their day.

不，他们不是鼓舞任何社会或音乐运动的70年代乐队的成员，也不是臭名昭著的强盗乐队，他们从那时起就大肆抢劫。

They are, first of all, not a group. And this isn’t even the whole list of names. There are several more people involved, and none of them even worked together. In fact, they were all competitors. Competing on what? On who created the most successful… drumroll, please… screwdriver!

首先，它们不是一个团体。 而且这还不是全部名称。 还有更多的人参与其中，甚至没有一个人一起工作。 实际上，他们都是竞争对手。 竞争什么？ 关于谁创造了最成功的…… 鼓声，请 …… 螺丝刀 ！

一点历史 (A bit of history)

Some consider that the screw thread was invented around 400 BCE by a man named Archytas of Tarentum. Regardless of its inventor, and the date and place of birth of the screw, it is known that by the first century CE, screws were already a common thing, and they were used in everyday things like wine presses, olive oil presses, and for pressing clothes. But it took fifteen centuries to go from that to our modern day metal screws, and it wasn’t until 1798 that David Wilkinson invented machinery for the mass production of threaded metal screws.

有人认为该螺纹是在公元前400年左右由一个名叫塔伦图姆(Artenttas)的人发明的。 不论其发明者，螺丝的诞生日期和地点如何，众所周知，到公元一世纪，螺丝已经很普遍了，它们被用于酒压榨，橄榄油压榨和压衣服。 但是从那时到现代金属螺丝花了十五个世纪，直到1798年David Wilkinson发明了用于大规模生产螺纹金属螺丝的机械。

Today, with the exception of a handful of manufacturers that use proprietary screw heads to discourage users from tampering with their products, we mostly use a combination of Phillips and flathead screws. For decades, though, the story was substantially different. Throughout the 20th century, there was a battle of sorts where inventors and manufacturers raced to become the ultimate standard in screw heads.

如今，除了少数使用专有螺丝头的制造商阻止用户篡改其产品的制造商外，我们大多使用菲利普斯螺丝和平头螺丝的组合。 然而，几十年来，故事大相径庭。 在整个20世纪，发生了一场争斗，发明人和制造商竞相成为螺钉头的最终标准。

This made a lot of sense because there was a lot to be gained –or lost. If you specialized in manufacturing one of these screw heads and large appliance manufacturers chose that screw head for every product they made, you had a booming market to tend to. On the other hand, if those manufacturers went with another screw head, you were suddenly stuck with a bunch of screws that no one wanted to buy. Talk about being screwed!

这是很有意义的，因为有很多东西要获得或失去 。 如果您专门制造这些螺钉头之一，并且大型家电制造商为他们生产的每种产品都选择了该螺钉头，那么您的市场将趋于繁荣。 另一方面，如果这些制造商使用了另一个螺丝头，您突然会被一堆没人想要买的螺丝卡住。 谈论被拧！

A similar thing happened not too long ago, in the early 2000s, with cell phone chargers: every cell phone –and charger– came with its own connector, and sometimes the same manufacturer used more than one type, and it varied from one device to another.

不久前的2000年代，手机充电器也发生了类似的事情：每部手机(以及充电器)都有自己的连接器，有时同一家制造商使用的充电器不止一种，并且从一种设备到另一个。

This was actually a thing!

这实际上是一件事！

That madness lasted up until 2009, when the European Commission launched an initiative that resulted in the specification of a common external power supply (EPS). According to the European Commission, a common external power supply (“charger”) standard was desirable because,

这种疯狂一直持续到2009年，当时欧盟委员会发起了一项倡议，制定了通用外部电源(EPS)规范。 根据欧盟委员会的说法，采用通用的外部电源(“充电器”)标准是可取的，因为，

“Incompatibility of chargers for mobile phones is a major environmental problem and an inconvenience for users across the EU. Currently specific chargers are sold together with specific mobile phones. A user who wants to change his/her mobile phone must usually acquire a new charger and dispose of the current one, even if this is in perfect condition. This unnecessarily generates important amounts of electronic waste. Harmonising mobile phone chargers will bring significant economic and environmental benefits. Consumers will not need to buy a new charger together with every mobile phone.”

“手机充电器的不兼容是一个主要的环境问题，给整个欧盟用户带来不便。 当前，特定的充电器与特定的手机一起出售。 想要更换手机的用户通常必须购买新的充电器并丢弃当前的充电器，即使此充电器处于理想状态也是如此。 这不必要地产生了大量的电子废物。 协调手机充电器将带来巨大的经济和环境效益。 消费者无需与每部手机一起购买新的充电器。”

The struggles of compatibility have long been a part of modern human history. Some of them we’ve settled, but some still live among us:

兼容性的斗争长期以来一直是现代人类历史的一部分。 我们已经安顿了其中一些，但仍然生活在我们中间：

“In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade — which is one percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go f•ck yourself,’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.” ― Josh Bazell, Wild Thing

“按公制计算，一毫升的水占一立方厘米，重一克，需要消耗一卡路里的热量才能将温度升高一摄氏度，这是其冰点与沸点之间的差值的百分之一。 重量相等的氢气中恰好有一摩尔原子。 而在美国系统中，答案是“沸腾一加仑室温的水需要多少能量？” 是“自己动手，”，因为您无法直接关联任何数量。” - 乔什·巴泽尔 ( Josh Bazell)，《疯狂的事情》

背后的问题 (The problem behind it)

At Manas, we often find our way to making a joke about wanting to let every programming language go, and simply program everything in Excel. I mean, even grandmas are using it to create knitting patterns!

在Manas ，我们经常开个玩笑，想让每种编程语言消失，而只是用Excel编程所有内容。 我的意思是，甚至祖母都在使用它来创建编织图案 ！

It’s a joke, of course, but it is also telling: software development has evolved into an enormous field, with so many different options as to languages, frameworks and tools, that keeping up is a job in and of itself.

当然，这是个笑话，但也说明了这一点：软件开发已发展成一个巨大的领域，在语言，框架和工具方面有许多不同的选择，因此跟上工作本身就是一项工作。

That is when standards start to look attractive. Why keep a toolbox filled to its brim with ten different types of screwdrivers, in a variety of sizes, when you could simply carry a nice set of “the standard ones”?

这就是标准开始具有吸引力的时候。 当您只需要携带一套不错的“标准”螺丝刀时，为什么要用十种不同类型的螺丝刀将工具箱塞满？

The problem is that not everything can be thought of as a screwdriver.

问题在于，并非所有事物都可以视为螺丝刀。

On one end of the spectrum, we have the reinvention of the wheel on a daily basis: inventing a new screw head for each new thing we need to fasten. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is the proverbial hammer that makes every problem start to look like a nail.

一方面，我们每天都在重新设计轮子：为需要紧固的每件新事物发明一个新的螺丝头。 在频谱的另一端，有个众所周知的锤子，使每个问题开始看起来像钉子。

So, even though using only Excel to program would be totally impracticable, there is also a point in considering how many languages, frameworks and tools is practical to have under one’s belt. After all, a jack of all trades is a master of none.

因此，尽管仅使用Excel进行编程是完全不可行的，但要考虑有多少种语言，框架和工具才是切实可行的。 毕竟，万事通都是无主。

What we need, then, is some sort of guide that helps us calibrate our efforts when trying to solve problems using technology.

那么，我们需要的是某种指南，可以帮助我们在尝试使用技术解决问题时校准我们的工作。

建立，购买或调整……这是问题 (Build, buy or adapt… that is the question)

There are three ways to approach problem-solving with the use of technology: you can build something from scratch, you can buy something off-the-shelf or you can adapt an existing solution (either off-the-shelf or previously built within your organization) to address new needs.

使用技术解决问题的方法有三种：您可以从头开始构建某些东西，可以购买现成的东西，也可以改编现有的解决方案(现成的或以前在您自己内部构建的解决方案)组织)来满足新的需求。

It is important to note that these three approaches are not isolated buckets, but part of a continuum that goes from generic commercial software solutions targeted to large markets, all the way to custom software built specifically for use cases.

重要的是要注意，这三种方法不是孤立的存储桶，而是连续的一部分，从针对大型市场的通用商业软件解决方案一直到专门为用例构建的定制软件。

Let’s take closer look to each component, following this continuum:

接下来，让我们仔细看看每个组件：

1.购买 (1. Buy)

Off-the-shelf standardized software solutions work great for tending to needs that are transversal to your business. These are needs that are likely not a core element of the specific design of your operation; they are necessary, but not a central element of what your company does.

现成的标准化软件解决方案非常适合满足横向需求的需求 。 这些需求可能不是您的特定操作设计的核心要素。 它们是必需的，但不是您公司工作的核心要素。

Therefore, it’s probable that other organizations have similar versions of these needs, and the solution allows for a fair amount of standardization. However,

因此，其他组织很可能具有这些需求的类似版本，并且该解决方案允许相当数量的标准化。 然而，

“The more reusable something is, the less usable it is.” – Neal Ford

“可重用性越高，则可用性越低。” –尼尔·福特

Examples of these transversal needs in organizations are Project planning and management, Project accounting, Data collection, Dashboards and metrics, Monitoring & Evaluation, Statistical analysis, Team communication tools, etc.

组织中这些横向需求的示例是项目计划和管理，项目会计，数据收集，仪表盘和度量标准，监视和评估，统计分析，团队沟通工具等。

Almost every organization has to find a way to cater to these types of needs, so it’s fair to assume that a significant amount of thinking has gone into sound ways of solving them. It doesn’t make too much sense to spend your time reinventing this wheel, unless you have a really good reason to justify building a custom set of wheels for your company.

几乎每个组织都必须找到一种方法来满足这些类型的需求，因此可以公平地假设，大量的思想已经投入到解决这些问题的合理方法中。 花时间重新设计轮子没有太大的意义，除非您有充分的理由证明为公司构建一套定制轮子是合理的。

The level of standardization of these needs allows for a quick checklist of what to have in mind when choosing one of these tools:

这些需求的标准化程度允许您快速选择以下工具时要考虑的清单：

• Data portability
  数据可携性
• Interoperability
  互通性
• Contract type
  合同类型

• Platform support

  平台支援

  * Windows/Mac

  * Windows / Mac

  * Mobile (iOS/Android)

  *行动版(iOS / Android)

  * Tablets

  *平板电脑

• Privacy and security
  隐私与安全

2.适应 (2. Adapt)

Half-way between building and buying, the approach is to buy an off-the-shelf solution and adapt it to your needs. While buying a packaged solution requires no development and little in the ways of implementation, it yields reduced customization. Adapting a tool makes for a better fit between the problem and the solution, at the cost of some degree of work on top of a base state of the tool, while still not requiring a full-blown development effort.

在构建和购买之间的一半时间，方法是购买一个现成的解决方案并使其适应您的需求。 虽然购买打包解决方案不需要开发，并且执行方式也很少，但可以减少定制。 改编工具可以使问题和解决方案更好地契合，但要付出一些代价，即要在工具的基本状态之上进行工作，而仍然不需要全面的开发工作。

These adaptations usually come in three major forms:

这些改编通常以三种主要形式出现：

• Plug-ins: widespread platforms like WordPress, Moodle or Slack offer a great deal of functionality as-is, but there is also a wide selection of plug-ins to customize the tool to more specific needs, and you can also develop your own.

  插件 ：WordPress，Moodle或Slack等广泛的平台按原样提供大量功能，但是也有很多插件可供选择，以根据更具体的需求自定义工具，您也可以自行开发。

• APIs: a lot of platforms like Google Maps or PayPal out there allow you to integrate via their APIs and consume some of their services, allowing you to add functionality to your system without having to develop it.

  API ：许多平台(例如Google Maps或PayPal)允许您通过其API进行集成并使用其某些服务，从而无需开发即可向系统添加功能。

• OpenSource: these days, for most standard problems, free and open-source libraries are available, that can save a lot of time and effort, and help you avoid vendor lock-in.

  开源 ：如今，对于大多数标准问题，都提供免费和开源的库，可以节省大量时间和精力，并帮助您避免供应商锁定。

3.建立 (3. Build)

Finally, there are scenarios where it makes the most sense to build a solution from scratch. It might be because you work in a niche space, sufficiently small that no one has developed a one-size-fits-all solution, or the available options are not cost-effective. In these cases, building is not only the best option, it is also the only one that makes sense in terms of TCO.

最后，在某些情况下从头开始构建解决方案最有意义。 可能是因为您在利基空间中工作，而这个利基空间很小，以至于没人能开发出一种“千篇一律”的解决方案，或者可用的选择并不划算。 在这些情况下，构建不仅是最佳选择，而且还是唯一在总拥有成本方面有意义的选择。

Another scenario where building is the best strategy is when you set out to disrupt a space, either by re-thinking how a service is delivered or how a process is done. In this case, your product needs to bring a significant enough degree of innovation to cast a shadow over every other packaged solution.

构建是最佳策略的另一种情况是， 您打算通过重新考虑服务的交付方式或过程的完成方式来破坏空间 。 在这种情况下，您的产品需要带来足够大的创新程度，才能为所有其他打包解决方案蒙上阴影。

For these types of endeavours, the cost (both in time and money) of adapting generic products to something useful and groundbreaking is so large that the best course of action –and the only one that makes any sense– is to simply start fresh.

对于这些类型的努力，使通用产品适应有用和开创性的成本(在时间和金钱上都如此之大)，以至于最好的行动方针( 也是唯一有意义的行动)只是简单地重新开始。

For these kinds of aggressive innovations, which aim to create a considerable distance (or moat) with regards to the competition and other readily available solutions, you will need to build a custom software solution that supports your business vision.

对于这类激进的创新，目的是在竞争和其他易于获得的解决方案之间保持一定的距离(或护城河)，您将需要构建支持您的业务远景的定制软件解决方案。

Another scenario where it makes sense tu build a custom solution is when the tool or solution will be core to your business for a long time: you don’t want to depend on external providers for services that will be at the center of how you operate. They might change their policies, jack-up their prices, update their APIs or even go bankrupt, and where does that leave you?

在构建定制解决方案时有意义的另一种情况是，该工具或解决方案在很长一段时间内将成为您业务的核心：您不希望依赖外部提供商来提供以您的操作方式为中心的服务。 他们可能会改变政策，抬高价格，更新API甚至破产，这又会如何？

开车回家 (Driving the point home)

So, what can we take home from all of this talking about screwdrivers, cell phone chargers and pictures of hermit crabs?

那么，关于螺丝起子，手机充电器和寄居蟹的图片，我们能从中得到什么呢？

Standardization may very well be the standard, but innovation occurs at the fringes.

标准化很可能是标准，但是创新发生在边缘。

Knowing when to buy, adapt or build is key to find a balance between making an efficient use of your resources and creating value that puts your business ahead of the competition. It all boils down to 5 essential questions:

在何时有效地利用资源和创造可让您的企业在竞争中脱颖而出的价值之间找到平衡的关键是，知道何时购买，适应或建造。 全部归结为5个基本问题：

1. Is this need core or transversal? Identify how far or how close this need is regarding your core business to assess how you will invest in solving it.

   这是核心需求还是横向需求？ 确定此需求与您的核心业务之间的距离或距离有多近，以评估您将如何投资解决此问题。

2. What are the available options? Review existing solutions in the market and verify criteria (find or create your own checklists).

   有哪些可用选项？ 查看市场上现有的解决方案并验证标准(查找或创建自己的清单)。

3. What is the Total Cost of Ownership? Everywhere on the Internet there are formulas for calculating TCO. This is one of them.

   总拥有成本是多少？ 互联网上到处都有计算总拥有成本的公式。 这就是其中之一 。

4. Is this cost-efficient? Either building something too similar to an existing household brand or buying something ready-made that only covers a very small portion of your needs can be a bad idea. Make sure you do the math and confirm cost efficiency before setting a course of action.

   这划算吗？ 打造与现有家用品牌太相似的东西，或者购买仅能满足您很小一部分需求的现成商品都是一个坏主意。 确定行动方案之前，请务必先做数学运算并确认成本效率。

5. Is this still working out? Last but definitely not least, review periodically if the choice you made back when, in a different context and with different information, still holds water in new contexts, with new information.

   这还在解决吗？ 最后但并非最不重要的一点是，请定期检查您在不同背景下使用不同信息时所做的选择是否仍在新背景下使用新信息的情况下保持不变。

So, after this long and winding ride, you should be better prepared to decide how to approach problems with technology. This is not an exhaustive guide to do so, but it is a pretty good place to start. Hope it helped!

因此，经过漫长而曲折的旅程之后，您应该更好地准备决定如何解决技术问题。 这并不是一个详尽的指南，但是它是一个很好的起点。 希望能有所帮助！

翻译自: https://medium.com/swlh/screwed-up-2b78da2d47fb

搞砸了的设计