alt Hacker News> If the whole thread is you arguing about the premise and saying there may be a chance of it not being true, then this is not a discussion. It’s speculative fiction.
But it is a really concrete question. Me or other people may be in Chet's situation, so it is important that you just not answer "if you are not over-engineering, then it's a different premise, so it does not count, you don't really exist".
We both agree that over-engineering is bad. I guess you agree that sometimes, someone may propose a different solution that is not over-engineering? My question, and it is not a trick question, is: can you explain me what this person should do in this situation.
It is not a trick question, it is real: my impression from this discussion is that if I'm in a situation where I have a constructive proposal, not out-of-scope, totally within the project goal, that will help the situation reaching its goal more smoothly, then whatever I say, you will just answer me "you ain't gonna need it", the same way the author did to Chet.
Let's imagine that Chet is speaking to the author of the article, and let's imagine that Chet does not want to plan for a new offroad motor pushing a trailer. Let's imagine that Chet is talking about the current project, its exact current goal, that within this project, they plan to use a standard Sedan 500 pounds engine, and that Chet is charged by the author of the article of installing wheels, but that the author has chosen a simplistic approach and that, as a consequence, these wheels will not be able to support a 500 pound engine. For example, the author of the article has asked Chet to do a "simple-on-axle-mounting" approach, and that car engineers have demonstrated that for more than 400 pounds engine, you need a more complex "double-corkscrew-mounting" (I made this up of course). Installing the wheels is the current task, and installing the engine will happen in 3 weeks. How can Chet approach the author of the article?
In the article, Chet approach the author by saying "I could do this simplistic thing now but in 3 weeks that will be insufficient so since we’re going to need this more complicated thing I want to do it now". What should have he said instead? Why this sentence is bad and what make this sentence sounds like Chet is talking about something out of scope? The author does not know that the "simple-on-axis-mounting" approach is discredited. What in this simple sentence informs the author of the article that Chet is not trying to inform them that this approach is not correct and that he is instead talking about out-of-scope over-engineering?
Trying to answer your question.
Your example does not work with the article because the simplistic approach is already proven to be an ok design. The wheel will support the engine. The complex approach (maybe a non standard suspension) is for an hypothetical scenario that Chet believes will occur in 3 weeks. That scenario is not the mounting of the engine which is already planned and scoped.
You don't delay a project because of an hypothetical scenario. What you do is evaluate and present the risks and a possible solutions. You don't rush in the implementation unilaterally. That's a cowboy mindset.
> What in this simple sentence informs the author of the article that Chet is not trying to inform them that this approach is not correct and that he is instead talking about out-of-scope over-engineering?
That means the solution is OK and the implementation will provide some value for the customer. How does he know that? Where's the argument, not merely examples as in the rest of the dialogue, but real objective facts and numbers (like there's another requirement that the customers are pressing us). It's very likely that any such situation would have skipped past by when designing the simple approach. Will we really need it? We know that we don't need it today. What will change in a few week that will make it a requirement? Again what needed here is objective facts. Not what-if scenarios. Why the rush? Why can't it wait for 2 weeks when we can tie the feature to the name of few customers (assuming it's B2B) or market analysis. Why do we need to spend let's say a week on this complicated approach when we can solve the problem in a day or two and ship it.That's all the questions I would have asked if I was not familiar with the project. But if you're the project lead, the only thing that would have led you to question yourself is if Chet has said the simplistic approach does not work. But it does.