Re: [tlug] [Resolved] Experience running internet connections over old Japanese wiring that wasn't designed for internet connections

[Simon Cozens <simon@example.com>]

On 21/03/2015 17:43, Josh Glover wrote:
> Sometimes the best solution to a technical problem is to reframe it as
> a non-technical one.

I was doing some consultancy recently for a company. The MD was very
keen on allowing clients using the web-based database search to do all
kinds of incredibly whizzy queries. It was a Grand Plan, and would
probably necessitate moving to a graph database and developing a very
flexible web-based query generator. Huge amount of work.

My solution was to say something along the lines of "If I do this, you
will have to pay me £x in developer time, most clients probably won't
use it, and you won't be able to charge them all that much more for the
product anyway. If I *don't* do it, then clients who want that level of
specific data mining can pay *you* to do the research."

Suddenly, no more Grand Plan.