Things That Only Work in Theory: Communism and Gantt Charts
Description
A two-panel meme with the headline '2 things that only work in theory'. The left panel displays the hammer and sickle symbol on a red background with the caption 'communism'. The right panel shows a screenshot of a detailed project Gantt chart, captioned 'The Daily Gantt Chart You Made At The Beginning Of A Project Being Useful & Accurate For The Duration Of An Entire Project'. The meme humorously equates a complex political and economic ideology with the common software development experience of project plans becoming obsolete almost immediately after they are created. It satirizes the futility of rigid, long-term planning (often associated with waterfall methodologies) in the chaotic and unpredictable environment of software engineering, a pain point deeply familiar to senior developers who have seen countless such plans fail
Comments
36Comment deleted
The only thing a Gantt chart successfully predicts is the exact moment when the project will deviate from the Gantt chart
The only truly immutable artifact in our pipeline is the Gantt chart we printed on day 0 - nobody’s dared to rebase it since reality hit prod
The only difference between a Gantt chart and a blockchain whitepaper is that at least the whitepaper admits it's speculative fiction from the start
The Gantt chart isn't a plan, it's a historical document - written before the history happened, and equally accurate
The Gantt chart is the software industry's most optimistic fiction - a beautiful artifact that captures the exact moment before reality, scope creep, and 'just one more quick feature' conspire to make it a historical document of naïve hope. Like communism, it assumes perfect information, rational actors, and no unexpected dependencies. In practice, both encounter the same fatal flaw: they underestimate the chaos inherent in complex systems involving actual humans. The only difference is that we're still required to update the Gantt chart every sprint to maintain the illusion of control
Initial Gantt charts are CRDTs - after enough merges, the only convergent value is 'behind schedule'
The only thing more theoretical than communism is a fixed-scope software project
A Gantt chart at project kickoff is optimistic locking for time - looks right until one cross-team dependency writes to reality, and you rebase the whole timeline to “next quarter.”
What could possibly go wrong? 🤔 Comment deleted
Communism doesn't work even in theory. Comment deleted
that's what a CIA agent would say Comment deleted
Thats what a guy, who born in USSR and living in a former USSR republic would say. If you want to immigrate here, i can help you with finding a job in agriculture sector. I think you will like your slave-like treatment and 150usd/month salary. So, when you're going to come? Comment deleted
hmm, idk abt you, but maybe your countries are shit because the USSR was totalitarian and the land wasn't very great to begin with? just a thought. Not saying we should implement communism ofc, but it isn't as clear-cut as you make it out to be. Comment deleted
Oh, so, you can name me a couple of non-totalitarian communist regimes, hm? Comment deleted
no, which means that we can't come to conclusions because our dataset is too small, and I'd like to keep it at that. What's working best rn is heavily regulated capitalism. Comment deleted
If you want "heavily regulated capitalism", you can move to my place. But i bet you will never do, am i right? People like you, who born in thriving wester countries and never lived in a hell, like i do, always dream about "government regulations" of everything. But have you ever starving? Im talking not about saving money on restaurants and shopping on bargains, but when you literally nothing to eat, and you drinking water just to be able to sleep? Oh, i forgot, shit im living in is not because millions of people was sent to gulags and killed here by communists. Not because you need a license(which is almost impossible to get) to do literally anything as a result of "heavily regulated capitalism". Its because "land wasnt great to start with". Yeah, right. You just doesn't know anything about a live outside of your warm, cosy and nourished bubble you born in. I hope you will never see how communism will come to your place. And you will never see your kids starving. Period. Comment deleted
I live in austria, I got plenty regulated capitalism. And no I won't read past the first line because it's entirely ridiculous. Comment deleted
Oh, so all my fucking live is entirely ridiculous? Ok, kid. Comment deleted
didn't say that, strawman argument right there Comment deleted
What? You saying what im lying, when im said i was starving? Oh, believe me, kid, i was starving. And i will never forget this. Ive seen my mother begging on her knees not to throw us on street from place we were living in because we didn't had 40usd to pay monthly rent. Yeah, strawman arguments. Said by some austrian kid, dreaming about communism. Move here, in Belarus, dude, i will teach you, how to survive full month on 100 usd. Be a man. Try, at least. Comment deleted
didn't say that, strawman argument right there: season 2, electric boogaloo & knuckles (featuring dante from the devil may cry series) HD Deluxe Comment deleted
Omg, grow up, kid. Comment deleted
Man, you just shared your trauma right away on stranger, just think about it Comment deleted
So what? You think i care about this? Nope. Ive seen shit, thats a story of my life and im ready to share it with somebody, how can learn something from it. As it said in my place - idiots learns lessons from their own experience while smart people learn lessons from other peoples experience. And, if, maybe, at some point, this guy will decide not to vote for communist/more regulations(or, at least, gives him self some additional thinking) just because he will remember me, i think, it will be a great outcome. And definitely it will worth sharing some of my stories. Comment deleted
Imagine you are a farmer, working with 2 other farmers in communism. If both of them are lazy and do less work than you. You all still earn the same salary. If you are okay with this. Communism work for you. But most of time, people are not okay with this. Comment deleted
Wait, that's not a communism if government didn't take away what you produced for re-distribution. Just keep in mind that, just in case, someone in gov will want to keep what was planned to be re-distribute - you will have no voice to oppose that decision. Comment deleted
I assume people understand this and I just add some reality example in it. Yes. The gov will take all the resources and the farmers will have the same re-distribution from it. Comment deleted
If you think more, let’s say the gov is just AI. They don’t have selfishness or emotions. The outcome is still the same. No one will work seriously. Comment deleted
Of course they don’t, except that any AI always have operators Comment deleted
And not to mention those crazy devs who « we have no idea how this happened! We are very sorry that our AI thinks that Hitler is best human and an example to follow » Comment deleted
i cannot claim communism won't work in theory after all, there are different definitions of "work" but i still wonder how exactly communism is compatible with human paychology and what's more important: whether it's competitive against anarchish capitalism of megacorporations and mass media of today Comment deleted
3. A huge app with 100 microservices covered by unit tests only, without any integration or selenium tests Comment deleted
he just left (or never joined) and not banned Comment deleted
PS: The reason I pick farmer as example because no one work seriously and that’s why everyone is starving because there is no enough food. Comment deleted
Communism can only work within uniform society of ultimate motivated altruists. Comment deleted
Humans cannot do it without biological altering & removal of conscious selves to become a mammalian hive species Comment deleted