🐿️ Recapitulation - The IPT Newsletter
Originally published 16th December 2024
It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Contraptions
A few weeks ago I wrote about Inspector Gadget, helicopters, and typical software systems as examples of Venkatesh Rao’s contraptions: hodgepodges of delicately balanced, fragile components that look like they’re about to fall apart but somehow manage to do something useful. The technology you and I use, sell, and depend on is full of these kludgy but valuable components, so it’s worth investing in understanding how they work and why they fail.
Now that I’ve been attuned to contraptions, I can’t stop seeing them:
● Replaying computer evolution. Until recently, every time you turned on an older computer, it pretended for a few seconds to be an IBM PC from 1981 before joining the 21st century (that’s why you’d often see scrolling fixed-width text as your machine hoisted itself painfully into gear). “Ontology recapitulating phylogeny” is discredited in biology, but real in computer systems; for another example, upgrading some versions of Windows involved installing three different versions one after another, building from ancient DOS to modern Windows 95.
● These Microsoft shenanigans are special cases of shims, contraptions that help one component put on a mask and play the part of another one. For example, a mobile app might pretend to be a desktop display, but secretly replace every wide screen in the main program with a narrower, responsive one. This fools an older or incompatible piece of software into thinking it’s merrily operating in its normal, familiar world, when in fact it’s running on a totally different platform or system. (If this reminds you of the Matrix then you have the right idea.) One of my clients is using this method to keep ancient, 40-year-old infrastructure software chugging along well into middle age.
● Earlyvangelists are great contraptioneers. The key signal that you’ve found a true fan is that they’ve already got a clunky, horrible contraption that sort-of solves the problem you address, so what you offer is rain on parched earth. Spreadsheets are a favourite contraption component for the earlyvangelist: in my fintech days, we routinely found billions of dollars being managed by a teetering Excel document full of wrong formulas added by bleary-eyed interns. (If you’re looking for holiday reading, see Four Steps to the Epiphany for more, but it’s Proustian in its turgidity—Lean Startup goes down easier.)
● Lest you think contraptions always play the hero, let me take you to a hospital where we were replacing a paper-based prescribing process with shiny new software. One day we got an angry call from a doctor about our system incorrectly blocking medicine orders; when we investigated, we found that he was requesting massive dosages, enough to kill an elephant. It turned out that the nurses had known for decades that this doctor mixed up milligrams and micrograms, and rather than confront him, they just quietly corrected his prescription slips before taking them to the pharmacy. This loosely coupled, makeshift system of misguided doctor, sneaky nurses, and oblivious chemist somehow managed to cure patients for years, but it’s hardly a contraption worthy of praise.
Now that I’ve infected you with contraptionitis too, look for examples in your technology, company systems, and customer processes. In the new year, I’ll have lots more to say about locating, managing, and delicately removing these fragile, beautiful creatures.
This first appeared in my weekly Insanely Profitable Tech Newsletter which is received as part of the Squirrel Squadron every Monday, and was originally posted on 16th December 2024. To get my provocative thoughts and tips direct to your inbox first, sign up here: https://squirrelsquadron.com/
