The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

JoS Forum's law

Godwin's Law (also Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies) is an adage in Internet culture that was originated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states that:

>> As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. <<

There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made in a thread the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. Many people understand Godwin's Law to mean this, although (as is clear from the statement of the law above) this is not the original formulation.

I see a new evolved version of this law, let's call it the JoS Forum's law:

>> As a JoS thread discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving outsourcing approaches one. <<

From now on once such a comparison is made in a thread at JoS forum the thread is over, and whoever mentioned outsourcing has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.

your address is never revealed
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

The interesting thing is that it changes all the time on this forum.

I call it blamestorming....

It used to be HB11s
At some point it was recruiters
Managers have had their turn
Now it is developers in India and China

Wonder who's next?

just for the record though, outsourcing != offshoring, and at the moment I think the offshoring crowd is getting it more than the outsourcing lot.

Tapiwa
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

sysadmins. Those bastards make life hard for us smart developers.

Mike
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

salad cream

AC
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

When offshoring is mentioned, the thread migrates to an Indian host.

simple
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

All I know is that the time it takes to write the bulk of these JOS entries can be used to start ventures with enough man years to build another Singapore--but then who cares about that--let's get back to bitching about the faceless labor force somewhere out there.

Li-fan Chen
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Plus, canings are probably a better deterrent than community service.

Kyralessa
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Incidentally, there's corollary to Godwin's Law that invoking it on purpose doesn't work.

Philo

Philo
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

It would work if you covered it in salad cream, Philo.

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

> canings are probably a better deterrent than community service

Or an incentive. It really depends on your inclination.

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

"From now on once such a comparison is made in a thread at JoS forum the thread is over"

Who put you in charge of when a thread is over?. What are you some kind of Nazi? :)

sgf
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Do people really compare things to outsourcing or offshoring towards the end of threads, when all other arguments have been exhausted? I think not. The real problem is the high percentage of threads, this one included, that are intrinsically about offshoring or outsourcing.

Your analogy is invalid and will be ignored.

name withheld out of cowardice
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Well in that case the first post killed the thread.

Woodentongue
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Outsource the Nazis to India or China and the Internet, and JOS is saved.

Huh?
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

I hear Philo's father was a Nazi.

That should end this thread :)

Snotnose
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Anyone with high-heels want to spank me??
Sorry could not resist :-()

(See Ask Joel forum for thread stopping comments about women with high heels)

Tapiwa
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

got fishnets?

hoser
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

As a manager I had to get some work done so I outsourced it. The project returned with comments,variables etc in German. It turned out that the outsourcer off-shored the project to a colony of nazis who had moved to India after the war. My developers are complaining that the code needs to be completely re-written as they cannot follow anything. What will I do?

Me
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

It's them damn outsourcing nazi's who are to blame!

Cletus
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Me.

I am sure the lead on the project was an ex H1b, who wore fishnets and heels, and had a non-technical background in recruitment.

Tapiwa
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

I think this thread has wormholed into hyper-thread-space by the use of two anti-concepts: outsourcing and nazis. It will now continue to grow until it consumes the whole internet.

I think I want to end it all, pass the dihydrogen monoxide !

Woodentongue
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

>>Next lot of folk to take the brunt>>

Wooden tongue must be a terrorist sympathiser.

"Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death."

(google cache)
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:kuT9XpS9SioJ:www.dhmo.org

Now we can say that terrorists are known to be trying to aquire this weapon of mass distraction (spelling error intended)

Tapiwa
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

If you want to avoid losing an argument, don't go for the usual Teutonic reference (since evidently there's no restriction on other dictators). Some colorful swine to choose from:

>> Stalin
>> Pol Pot
>> Any post-1956 Guatemalan president
>> Khomeini
>> And his predecessor, Reza Pahlavi
>> Idi Amin
>> Genghis Khan
>> And of course the infamous Saddam

Speaking of Saddam, that reminds me of Dubya. While Dubya certainly cannot be compared to these other notables in terms of atrocities, the way he's handled...um...everthing since he was selected to office makes him a prime target, donchya think?

For example...

"So you think it's ok to outsource jobs to India, eh? What, are you some kind of Dubya wannabe? Or maybe you're just a plain old Nazi -- aw, damn! Can I take that back?"

George Illes
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Every thread attempts to expand until it mentions nazis or outsourcing. Those threads which cannot expand are replaced by ones wich do mention nazis or outsourcing.

RP
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Just as bad as dihydrogen oxide is hydroxic acid.

In fact, it's exactly as bad, in every way.

Aaron F Stanton
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Clinton

Mike
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

> When offshoring is mentioned, the thread
> migrates to an Indian host.

What kind of persistence mechanism is used? Is the thread hybernated? Are the stack contents transferred :-P ?

Alexander Chalucov (www.alexlechuck.com)
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

> The project returned with comments,variables etc in German.

This is actually funny. I recently had a project where I had to work on some code that had recently been ported to a new platform. The port was outsourced to India. When it came back it had some added comments, all in German (we're a US company).

Sure was fun feeding these comments into babelfish to see what they meant.

Snotnose
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

I'm feeling left out... how about John Howard, eh?

Jack of all
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Jack of All,

I second the John Howard call :)

ko
Wednesday, March 17, 2004

The problem with the John Howard call is that he looks good compared to Peter Costello. ;)

Sum Dum Gai
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Howard and Costello? Who are they? The Aussie version of Abbot and Costello?

Look, for us internationally-impaired gringos your obscure Aussie references are a bit too much. Geez - what are you guys, some type of Windows-hugging Nazi fascists?

I AM kidding, of course.

George Illes
Thursday, March 18, 2004

George, when the current Australian Prime Minister (John Howard) retires some time soon, the two top politicians in the conservative party will be Peter Costello and Tony Abbott. There could easily come a day when our country is run by Abbott & Costello in name and not just spirit.

Rhys
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Rhys, Now THAT is funny!

George Illes
Thursday, March 18, 2004