小园丁与老司机
An old man was walking along a road in the countryside, and came upon a stately mansion. He wandered in through the open gate and began admiring the garden: beautiful flowers in vibrant colours, handsome trees bearing all kinds of delicious-looking fruit, immaculately manicured lawn stretching from fence post to stone wall.
一位老人正沿着乡间的小路走来，来到一座庄严的豪宅上。 他穿过敞开的大门漫步，开始欣赏花园：鲜艳夺目的美丽花朵，种满各种美味水果的漂亮树木，修剪整齐的草坪，从栅栏延伸到石墙。
“Impressive, isn’t it,” came a voice from the house’s direction. The old man looked up: a tall figure was striding towards him with a congenial smile. “Yes, we are quite proud of our garden. Did you know, our pear trees just over here recently won the prestigious Yummiest Looking Fruit prize in the Regional Agricultural Deliciousness contest?”
“令人印象深刻，不是吗。”房屋方向传来声音。 老人抬起头：一个高大的人物正向他大步微笑。 “是的，我们为我们的花园感到骄傲。 您知道吗，我们附近的梨树最近在“区域农业美味大赛”中赢得了享有声望的“最美味水果奖”？”
“It is indeed impressive. How do you find time to keep such a magnificent garden?” inquired the old man.
“的确令人印象深刻。 您如何找到时间保留如此宏伟的花园？” 老人问。
“Ah, the team of gardeners and landscapers I have assembled are second to none! The quality of their work is unparalleled across the land; the literal fruits of their labour bring a tear to the eye to behold.”
“啊，我组建的园丁和园丁团队是首屈一指的！ 他们的工作质量在全国各地都是无与伦比的； 他们辛苦工作的字面结果使人眼前一亮。”
The old man had another look. This Owner was right: there was actually a blue ribbon affixed to one of the pear trees. The tulips and roses seemed to glow in the sunlight. But there was something off about the scene that the old man couldn’t quite put his finger on…
老人换了个眼神。 这个主人是对的：实际上，其中一根梨树上贴着一条蓝丝带。 郁金香和玫瑰似乎在阳光下发光。 但是现场发生了一些事情，老人无法完全把手指放在……
“I should like very much to meet your gardeners, to find out how they achieve such results?” inquired the old man.
“我非常想见见你的园丁，以了解他们如何取得这样的成果？” 老人问。
“Of course,” replied the Owner, and snapped his fingers. Immediately, a disheveled figure appeared beside him and snapped to attention. “Vincent, share the secrets of your success with this wandering traveler (or are you a traveling wanderer? No matter.) I need to make preparations for the upcoming tulip festival, if you will excuse me.” He bowed, and returned to the house.
“当然，”船主回答，然后按了一下手指。 立刻，一个衣衫不整的身影出现在他旁边并引起注意。 “文森特，和这个流浪的旅行者分享您成功的秘诀(或者您是旅行的流浪者？没关系。)如果您能原谅我，我需要为即将到来的郁金香节做准备。” 他鞠躬，回到了房子。
现在他走了…… (Now that he’s gone …)
“These pear trees are marvelous,” exclaimed the old man, “how on Earth did your team produce such delicious-looking fruit?”
“这些梨树，都是很好的 ，”惊呼老人，“如何在地球上没有你的团队产生这么好吃的好看的水果？”
Vincent glanced over his shoulder to ensure the Owner was properly gone, then two remarkable things happened at the same time: his shoulders sagged a little, and he gave a conspiratorial wink. “We were asked to produce fruit that would win the award for looking delicious. When I explained that to produce actually beautiful and healthy fruit would require a lot of ground work that this garden is not equipped for, and expertise that this team does not possess, the Owner clapped his hands over his ears and replied, ‘I don’t care what you need to do, just win me that prize. And before you ask, no, you can’t spend any extra money.’ “
文森特瞥了一眼他的肩膀，以确保船东正确走了，然后同时发生了两件令人瞩目的事情：他的肩膀有些下垂，他眨了眨眼。 “我们被要求生产水果，因为它看起来好吃而将赢得大奖。 当我解释要生产出真正美丽健康的水果需要大量的耕作，而这个花园没有配备这些耕作，而这支团队所不具备的专业知识时，店主拍了拍手，回答：“我不知道”不管您需要做什么，只要赢取我那笔奖金即可。 在你问之前，不，你不能花任何额外的钱。 “
Vincent went on to explain how they achieved the goal. They planted trees in the rocky soil. The trees grew, but they needed to be held up by struts that were not visible from their current vantage point. Indeed, upon closer inspection, the old man could see the trees’ kludgy support structures that appeared to be buckling under the weight. Nearby, a few tree trunks were visible: evident casualties of the hastily cobbled-together system.
文森特继续解释了他们如何实现这一目标。 他们在多岩石的土壤上种了树。 树木长大了，但是它们必须被从当前有利位置看不到的Struts支撑。 确实，经过仔细检查，老人可以看到树木的笨重的支撑结构似乎在重量的作用下弯曲。 在附近，可以看到一些树干：匆忙地将鹅卵石拼凑在一起的系统造成了明显的人员伤亡。
As for the pears themselves, they turned out to be rocks, painted in bright colours, and tied to the branches with string. Outraged, the old man wheeled on the gardener: “How could you do such things? You call yourself a gardener??”
至于梨子本身，它们原来是石头，被涂成鲜艳的颜色，并用绳子绑在树枝上。 那个老人愤怒地推着园丁：“你怎么做这样的事情？ 你自称为园丁吗？”
Vincent merely shrugged and replied, “I give the Owner what he wants. He wanted to win a Yummy- Looking fruit contest with no extra resources, so that’s what I gave him. He is a kind and benevolent Owner; I am compensated very well, as long as I deliver what he asks.”
文森特只是耸了耸肩，回答道：“我给了主人他想要的东西。 他想赢得Yummy- 望果大赛，没有额外的资源，所以这是我送给他的。 他是一个善良而仁慈的主人。 只要我能满足他的要求，我就会得到很好的补偿。”
至少花园看起来合法 (At least the flower garden looks legit)
The old man turned his attention to the roses growing nearby. He approached one with suspicion. He touched it gently: these were no rocks. He inhaled the scent: magnificent. “Well, these are beautiful. Such wonderful colours. How do you manage it?”
老人把注意力转向附近生长的玫瑰。 他怀疑地走近一个人。 他轻轻地抚摸着：这些不是石头。 他吸入了这种气味：宏伟。 “嗯，这些很漂亮。 如此奇妙的色彩。 您如何管理？”
Vincent’s face took on a pained expression. “That isn’t easy. The number of bugs that crawl on and around those flowers is unheard of. I need to ask my staff to work around the clock to keep the bugs off them.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, the bugs themselves are quite resilient: every time one of my staff resolves a bug problem on one flower, it seems another will simply appear on a different flower.”
文森特的脸上露出痛苦的表情。 “ 这并不容易。 闻不到在这些花朵上和周围爬行的虫子的数量。 我需要请我的员工昼夜不停地工作，以避开这些错误。” 他叹了口气。 “不幸的是，虫子本身具有相当的弹性：每当我的一名职员解决一朵花上的虫子问题时，似乎另一只花就会出现在另一朵花上。”
The old man offered an embarrassed cough. “You do … kill the bugs?”
老人咳嗽了一下。 “你…… 杀死虫子？”
Vincent’s face contorted as he struggled to respond. “Well … no. I mean, sometimes? Look, the Owner has always been satisfied with the rate at which we have been able to resolve problems with bugs. I tell him every week how many are observed, and how many we resolve. He rewards us handsomely.”
文森特努力应对时，脸上扭曲了。 “嗯……不。 我的意思是有时候？ 瞧，所有者对我们能够解决错误问题的速度始终感到满意。 我每周告诉他观察到多少，我们确定了多少。 他给了我们丰厚的回报。”
The old man pondered this. “Have you considered spraying the flowers, or taking some other measure to prevent the bugs from arriving in the first place?”
老人对此深思。 “您是否考虑过喷花或采取其他措施来防止虫子首先出现？”
“We have, but pesticides are very expensive. Besides, they are never 100% effective; bugs will appear no matter how hard you try to prevent them. They are a fact of life. The best approach is to deal with them one by one as quickly as possible.”
“我们有，但农药非常昂贵。 此外，它们永远不会100％有效； 无论您多么努力地预防错误，都会出现错误。 它们是生活中的事实。 最好的方法是尽快一一处理。”
“… or shoo them onto another flower,” reminded the old man. “Tell me exactly how you report bug fixes back to your Owner?”
老人提醒道：“……或者将它们赶到另一朵花上。” “告诉我您如何将错误修复报告给您的所有者？”
“We demonstrate to the Owner that the flower under consideration is no longer afflicted by bugs. Just last week I was able to report that my team planted 4 new flowers, and resolved 13 bug problems. He was thrilled. He merely requests that the flowers there are can be presented at the upcoming festival. He rewards us considerably for our work, you know.”
“我们向所有者证明，所考虑的花朵不再受虫害困扰。 就在上周，我能够报告我的团队种植了4朵新花，并解决了13个bug问题。 他很兴奋。 他只是要求那里的花朵可以在即将到来的节日上献上。 你知道，他为我们的工作给了我们很大的回报。”
The old man wondered why the Owner was at all interested in the process of finding and removing bugs, rather than simply rewarding them for the number of flowers they grew. Would not the Owner get better results at the festival, the more flowers he produced? He let the matter pass.
老人想知道为什么主人对发现和消除虫子的过程完全感兴趣，而不是仅仅因为它们长出的花朵而奖励它们。 所有者在节日里花的花越多，效果会更好吗？ 他让事情过去了。
翠绿的挂毯 (A verdant tapestry)
The old man shifted his attention to the grass under his feet. It was thick and healthy. Nothing fake here. But something wasn’t right: he looked to the sky, there were no clouds in sight. He asked, “Vincent, unless I am very much mistaken, there hasn’t been rain in this region for over a week. How do you manage to keep this grass so green?”
老人把注意力转移到脚下的草地上。 它又厚又健康。 这里没有假的。 但是有什么不对劲：他仰望天空，看不见乌云。 他问：“文森特，除非我非常误解，否则该地区已经有一个多星期没有下雨了。 您如何使这种草保持绿色？”
Vincent explained brightly: “We have been blessed with the Watering Cans of our Forefathers; we have been using these since time immemorial to deliver water from the well to the grass daily. Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly how they work or why they were put to use in the first place — this knowledge is lost to us. But we are in no position to question the wisdom of those-who-came-before-us. Their legacy will live on forever as long as we continue to use what they have left us.”
文森特生动地解释说：“我们因祖先的浇水罐而幸运； 自远古以来，我们一直在使用这些工具，每天将水从井中输送到草地。 不幸的是，我们并不确切地知道它们是如何工作的，或者为什么首先要使用它们-这些知识对我们来说是丢失的。 但是我们无法质疑那些在我们之前来过的人的智慧。 只要我们继续使用他们留下的东西，他们的遗产将永远存在。”
The old man stroked his beard thoughtfully. “WCF was a fine water-delivery technology a few years ago, but irrigation technology has come a long way since then. Have you considered switching to something more modern?”
老人若有所思地抚摸着胡须。 “ WCF几年前是一种优良的供水技术，但自那时以来灌溉技术已经走了很长一段路。 您是否考虑过改用更现代的产品？”
Vincent’s face clouded over instantly. No, the old man realized, it was a trick of the light; he looked up and saw the sky itself had instantly filled with clouds. Vincent’s voice took on a strident tone. “Switch? Modern? Who are you to speak about such things? How dare you question the wisdom of those-who-came-before-us?”
文森特的脸立刻蒙上了阴影。 不，老人意识到，这是光的一招。 他抬起头，看到天空本身立即充满了云层。 文森特的声音刺耳。 “开关？ 现代？ 你要和谁谈这些事情？ 您怎么敢质疑我们之前来的那些人的智慧？”
The old man stepped backwards. “I didn’t,” he began.
老人退后一步。 “我没有。”他开始说道。
“Heresy! Sacrilege! Be gone from this place, you reprobate vagabond. You miscreant. You will not deter us from our ways. Our Owner -”
“异端！ 祭祀！ 从这个地方走了，你就流浪了。 你真恶心 您不会阻止我们前进。 我们的主人-”
“- is extremely pleased with your efforts and compensates you handsomely, yes, you mentioned that. Well, why shouldn’t he, the results speak for themselves.” The old man hurriedly left the garden, as thunder rumbled overhead.
“-非常高兴您的努力，并给予您丰厚的补偿，是的，您提到了这一点。 好吧，为什么他不应该这样呢，结果不言而喻。” 头顶雷声隆隆，老人赶紧离开花园。
故事的道德启示 (Moral of the Story)
Let’s look for it together:
让我们一起寻找它：
- The Owner wanted results, fast. The gardener warned the Owner that to do it properly would take time and money. The Owner refused, so the gardener did it quickly and badly. Although the Owner is happy now, chances are good that this garden will be difficult or impossible to upkeep in the future. 店主想要快速的结果。 园丁警告所有者，正确执行此操作将需要时间和金钱。 所有者拒绝了，所以园丁很快又很糟糕地做了。 尽管房主现在很高兴，但很有可能这个花园将来很难或无法维护。
- The Owner rewards the gardener and his team for effort spent resolving bug problems. This is a false economy. The Owner ought instead to reward the gardening team for the number of flowers grown. The gardening team can work out that bugs prevent flowers from growing, and so take necessary steps to squash them permanently, or better yet, prevent them from appearing. The gardeners could consider buying the pesticides out of their own impressive salaries. 所有者奖励花匠及其团队解决错误问题所付出的努力。 这是一种虚假的经济。 所有者应改为奖励园艺团队种植的花朵数量。 园艺团队可以弄清楚虫子阻止了花朵的生长，因此采取了必要的措施将它们永久性地压扁，或者更好的是防止它们出现。 园丁们可以考虑从自己可观的薪水中购买农药。
- Vincent’s attitude towards technology is appalling, but it exists in software organizations today. The same technology- and patterns-of-old that were used to solve previous business problems are casually applied to new business problems without careful consideration or review. Any suggestion to try anything new is immediately squashed in the name of “being consistent”, so that anyone can work on it without extra training. 文森特对技术的态度令人震惊，但在当今的软件组织中却存在。 用于解决以前的业务问题的相同技术和旧模式可随意应用于新业务问题，而无需仔细考虑或审查。 任何尝试尝试任何新事物的建议都将以“保持一致”的名义被立即废除，以便任何人都可以在无需额外培训的情况下进行研究。
这些人注定要失败吗？ (Are these people doomed to fail?)
Not necessarily. But their mindset and the nature of their relationship needs to change.
不必要。 但是他们的心态和关系的性质需要改变。
The Owner should take a longer-term view. The gardener should produce plans that will yield long-term results, not short-term gains. The Owner should listen.
所有者应采取较长期的看法 。 园丁应该制定能够产生长期结果而不是短期收益的计划。 业主应听。
The Owner should focus on specifying what is valuable, and let the gardeners design and maintain the garden. Bug-fixing is a gardening concern; the Owner does not need to step in and reward specific behaviours. Perversely, by doing so, the Owner is actually incenting the gardeners not to prevent bugs at all.
所有者应专注于指定有价值的东西 ，并让园丁设计和维护花园。 错误修复是园艺的关注点； 所有者无需介入并奖励特定行为。 这样做反过来，所有者实际上是在激励园丁完全不防虫。
Put another way, Scrum teams: don’t take credit for fixing bugs, unless you subtract that credit from what you originally got for building a feature the first time. You can’t build a thing, then fix it, and fix it, and take credit 3 times. Come on.
换句话说，Scrum团队：不要将错误归功于错误修复，除非您从第一次构建功能时获得的荣誉中减去了这一荣誉。 您无法构建事物，然后对其进行修复，然后对其进行修复，并获得3次信用。 来吧。
Technology changes all the time, and technology teams need to try new things to stay current. If you stubbornly insist on staying on the tools-of-those-before-you forever, not only will you not see the benefits of modern techniques, there is a more sinister effect. The only people who will be able to work on your codebase are those with “institutional knowledge.” If your goal is to secure your role in development by making yourself irreplaceable, then by all means resist anything new and you’ll sit pretty. Right until your company shuts down or cuts costs, and I’m pretty sure the going exchange rate on your institutional knowledge is not great …
技术一直在变化 ，技术团队需要尝试新事物以保持最新。 如果你固执地坚持留守在工具的，那些先于你一辈子，你不仅会看不到现代技术的好处，还有一个更险恶的效果。 唯一能够在您的代码库上工作的人是那些具有“机构知识”的人。 如果您的目标是通过使自己无法替代来确保自己在发展中的角色，那么无论如何都要抵制任何新事物，您会坐得很漂亮。 直到您的公司关闭或削减成本为止，而且我很确定您机构知识的现行汇率不是很高……
Stay on top of trends. Try things out. Don’t rebuild your entire product or service every time a new framework pops up, but keep an open mind. Let people dabble; they may surprise you!
紧贴趋势。 试试看。 不要在每次出现新框架时都重建整个产品或服务，而是要保持开放的态度。 让人们涉猎； 他们可能会让您感到惊讶！
Speaking of weeds, I really should pay my front yard some attention …
说到杂草，我真的应该注意我的前院……
Originally published at http://codenugs.wordpress.com on August 18, 2020.
最初于 2020年8月18日 发布在 http://codenugs.wordpress.com 上。
翻译自: https://medium.com/the-innovation/the-weary-gardeners-6b1e20e3b0cd
小园丁与老司机
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