Re-reading Arjun Raj's post
(http://rajlaboratory.blogspot.ca/2016/02/from-reproducibility-to-over.html),
I've got a couple of thoughts. First, I think some of the disparaging
comments on Twitter and elsewhere were unhelpful: they're unlikely to
get the author to change his mind, and it discourages other people from
talking about what they do.
Second, we all make the same decision he does most of the time. For
example, people tell me I'd be more productive if I used Haskell instead
of Python, or the Atom editor, or Slack, or blah blah blah. In almost
every case, I compare the time I have to make the change, the time it'll
take for the change to pay off, and the likelihood of the technology's
fans being right about the benefits, and decide "nope" - and I'm willing
to bet you do too. I'm probably wrong in some cases, but with so many
new things flying around, I can't be certain which ones, and hey,
deadlines...
So here are my questions:
1. What's LD50 [1] for version control, i.e., how long would people have
to use it (or watch someone else use) for half of them to be convinced
it's worth adopting? I think LD50 for the Unix shell is less than an
hour, because that's how long it takes us to introduce pipes and loops,
which most workshop participants find compelling. At what point do at
least half of workshop participants find Git compelling enough to
actually adopt it?
2. What should we say to someone like Arjun? It's clear from his post
that he knows the arguments in favor of version control, and has
actually tried it. It's also clear that he cares about doing things
well - what can we do to convince someone like that?
Thanks,
Greg
[1] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/LD50
--
Dr Greg Wilson
Director of Instructor Training
Software Carpentry Foundation
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