Archive for 2016年5月

合理的肮脏

2016/05/11

2016-05-10-AutoBodyShop

上班时因为没及时换 lane,所以选了另一条路,经过一个整形喷漆的修车场。场外停满等待修理的车,每辆身上都有些变形和漆面擦落。整个环境充斥着萧条的气氛。

当然,在商业环境讲求效率的标准下,我们被教导了要「学会用正确的方式看待『整洁』」。

It took me a couple of months … before I realized what they meant. In the bakery, clean meant no dough on the machines. Clean meant no fermenting dough in the trash. Clean meant no dough on the floors.

Clean did not mean the paint on the ovens was nice and white. Painting the ovens was something you did every decade, not every day. Clean did not mean no grease. In fact there were a lot of machines that needed to be greased or oiled regularly and a thin layer of clean oil was usually a sign of a machine that had just been cleaned.

类似的视角并不限于商业。例如,我们都希望住进有专门车库的房子。不仅仅为了存放车辆,更是希望一些爱好的副产品远离起居室。在明亮的起居室欣赏飞机模型的时候,车库里存放着一张不必每天收拾的工作台,上面散布喷漆的污渍。

如果这种「合理的肮脏」均分在每个人的生活中,不仅是应该的,甚至是完美的点缀。可是在从微观到宏观的层面上,最优效率的组织方式都是类似的 —— 这是上面 Joel 的 blog 里毫不费力的用面包房来为后文的代码组织做类比的合理性所在。在某个层面上,合理的肮脏所跨越的范围必然覆盖到某些人群绝大部分生活空间。像上面的修车场附近的居民区,对他们来说,打开窗户就能看到,走出房门就会接触到的修车场并不像一个享受爱好之后就可以离开的车库。我写这篇 blog 的原因正是联想到类似的情形在地区和国家的层次上,对于在「车库」里的人来说,生活并不是那么愉快。