Item — HN Reader

It's interesting to see how — even in the 1880s — people were making the same mistakes as companies today: over-engineering to the point of unmanageable complexity ("complexity bad"[0]), and the less solve-all-possible-problems but simpler Linotype won out.

[0] - https://grugbrain.dev/

2 comments

Also treating machines as worker or job substitutes instead of amplifying tools.

I see that mistake made on literally every level from the automation of 15 minute tasks to analysis of the macroeconomic effects of robots and software.

I would say it was the opposite. The machine was overdesigned and underengineered. Someone needed to stop the guy and tell him that getting 18,000 precision parts working in unison is bad design and he needed several passes of engineering out as much complexity as possible to simplify the whole thing.

It was like trying to publish the first draft of your novel without ever having an editor go over it.