Dorodango: the Japanese art of making shiny mud balls (2019)
Dorodango is one of my favorite metaphors for operationalizing software. Start with any codebase, no matter how naively or ineptly implemented. Grind administrators against it in production for years and inevitably it will become a smooth, shiny and stable component.Often we talk about the power of inertia in keeping around old codebases with terrible histories. We talk about how illogical it is that we don't throw things out and start anew. There's a hidden value in a known quantity which has had blemishes polished off. With a nod to mythbusters, even a turd can shine [1] given sufficient effort. We have all dealt with many turds in the course of our careers.It is of course ideal to polish something more valuable than a turd. Architecture can still be rotten on the inside and necessitate replacement despite having a well polished exterior process. But new systems will always be unpolished no matter how well design. In the end there is no substitute for the smoothing process of constant handling.[1] https://go.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/polishi...