No Golden Machines

As humans, we can become attached to "golden" machines.

A very expensive bicycle set up just right, a well-tuned tool, a nicely configured workstation, a server that we have set up just right ...

We like buying expensive things or the iterative process of tweaking things just right.

However, this generally does not move YOUR Platform forward.

Everything on this earth is ephemeral.

Laptops are damaged. Bicycles are stolen. Tools break. Severs crash.

So then we become obsessed with protecting our golden machines -- locks, excessive security, redundancy, monitoring, etc.

The problem with being over-protective is that it is time-consuming and hinders our using something in the first place.

We're afraid to use it in case we might mess it up.

We're afraid to change it because we don't understand the history of tweaks.

What if instead we said: "NO GOLDEN MACHINES"

If our laptop gets run over, we can quickly set up a new one.

If the server crashes, we can quickly deploy a new one.

If we need to use a favorite editor on a different computer, it only takes 2 minutes to set it up.

If our bicycle is stolen, we buy another reasonably priced one and have the skills to set it up.

YOUR Platform is best built from machines that we can easily use, replicate, and scale, not golden machines that we have to protect.