If you put a frog into boiling water, it will jump out again.

If you put a frog into cold water then heat the water up, it will sit there quite happily as it is boiled alive.

Whether this is a real experiment or an urban legend, it is a singularly apposite metaphor for how people can stand to do software. I've been on mercifully few death march projects, but the increasing pressure over time on every project I have worked on is very much like the rising temperature in a heated pot of water. If I ever have a coat of arms, it will have a boiling frog on it.

This experiment also seems to be a good metaphor for how some people wnd up in trouble raising their kids. We have occasionally been watching "Supernanny" and, apart from looks we give each other along the lines of "What are we getting into here?", the most consistent observation we make is that the poor people who appear on the show have just let little things go, then bigger things, and before they know it their four year old child is manipulating them with tantrums and bad behaviour.

I will of course report back if I find that we are our own boiling frog experiment.

Or you might see us on "Supernanny".

Posted by Dunx at March 19, 2005 06:32 PM