I read ‘Dan Kogai’s Meeting with Alpha Geeks WEB+DB PRESS plus’ by Dan Kogai, so I’ll introduce the insights I gained from the book.

Background: Clearing the Reading Backlog

I suddenly remembered and read this book that I had been meaning to read.

Below are quotes and notes from impressive passages.

I Want to Be a Carpenter Rather Than an Architect

◆──Cathedral and Bazaar and Rails

Dan: What do you think architects need?

DHH: I think you lose if you use the word “architect.” Architect is a very suspicious word. What makes it suspicious is that I believe excellent architecture can never be created by design alone. You can only tell good from bad by actually making things. I want to be a carpenter rather than an architect.

Japanese: 弾 アーキテクトに必要なものは何だと思いますか？

ＤＨＨ 「アーキテクト」って言葉を使ったら負けだと思ってます。アーキテクトってとても怪しい言葉。何で怪しいかというと、僕自身は優れた建築というのは、設計だけでは絶対にできないと思ってます。実際にモノを作ってみてはじめて善し悪しがわかります。設計士よりも、大工でいたいのです。

? You lose if you use the word architect.

Technology is a Means to Implement Ideas

◆──It Was Faster to Make It Myself

Evan: That's right. For me, technology is a means to implement ideas, and I learned technology in that process, but in that process I also came to understand the structure of things better, and became able to see what's possible, what's easy and what's difficult, and what's actually worth doing. I became able to envision how things would actually turn out. Also, in my case, it was much faster to actually make it myself than to explain to people "this is what it should be like" and have them make it. I understand things much better by messing around with them myself rather than having people do it and then giving feedback.

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Evan: And once you get a feel that “this will work,” you can hire engineers who are better at finishing it up.

Japanese: Evan それはそれは。私にとって、テクノロジーというのはアイディアを実装する手段で、その過程で技術を学んだのだけれども、その過程でものごとの構造もよく見えるようになって、何が可能で、何が簡単で何が難しいのか、実際にやる価値があるのは何なのかを見抜けるようになった。実際にそれがどういうふうになるのか、思い描くことができるようになったんだ。あと、私の場合、実際に作っちゃったほうが、人に「こういうものだ」と説明した上で作ってもらうよりずっと早かったということもある。いちいち人にやってもらってダメ出しするより、自分でいじくり回したほうがよくわかる。

弾 うんうん。

Evan で、これでイケるという感触をつかんだら、もっと上手に仕上げるエンジニアを雇えばいい。

? Once you get a feel that “this will work,” hire engineers better than yourself.

That’s all from the Gemba.