Any task decomposes into a chain of unrelated prerequisites that obscures the original goal.
Vieri's term, from a Ren and Stimpy episode. Its practical use is noticing when you are four prerequisites deep and can no longer state why you started.
In practice
- A cook who set out to make soup is repairing a tin opener, and every step followed from the last.
- A developer who set out to fix a typo and is now upgrading a build tool has lost the afternoon to a chain each link of which was necessary.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Technology & Software
- Essay
- The programmers' folklore, and technology's place in society