Trade Offs
Been reading a really long, dry book about the fundamentals of software architecture.
In the book, the authors suggest there are 2 laws of Software Architecture:
a. Every decision is a trade-off.
b. If you haven’t found the trade-off, skill issue; keep looking.
It’s about why, not how.
I’m starting to think that they only re-discovered what economists consider opportunity cost and why repair costs factor into GDP but aren’t true economic advance.
I think even those economists only re-discovered the forces we all recognize in our lives which temper us with age. You gain the knowledge that everything, every decision, every outcome, every experience stands in a context relative to others, probably not much better or worse.
And it’s often when those outcomes and experiences appear like a step back or to the side that we’re most dismayed. But sometimes advance isn’t the goal. Stability, reliability, and an enjoyable life are perhaps much of the goals that matter.
After all, when you get to wherever you think you’ll be happy, the arrival fallacy will be there to make you to feel lost, look back, and realize after meeting your goal you can only look back at the good old days created by striving for it.