Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is one of my favorite webcomics. In a recent comic the author talks about why the Welsh language doesn’t use the letter ‘k’. I actually laughed out loud at this one, because it’s a great example of what I’ve referred to as “Getting Sebenicked” in the past. What does it mean?
Well, the general idea is that some Senior Guy makes a decision about technology/policy/etc. It’s a reasonable decision - possibly even a good decision - for the state of the world at the time. Over time that decision ossifies and ascends to the realm of Dogmatic Truth, irrespective of the changing world around it.
While this is a little tongue-in-cheek, I want to make it clear that I’m not picking on Craig. I could just as easily chosen a number of other super-smart engineers’ names. (heh Perhaps now I can start referring to it as “Getting Salesburied.”) We all make arbitrary decisions every day, some of which stick. This is necessary in order for progress to be made. For instance, I’d be willing to bet you didn’t get stuck at your house this morning because you couldn’t decide between the black socks or the blue.
In the case of Welsh it’s not entirely clear to me that it matters much; I mean, I can’t imagine the people of Wales campaigning for “A World With More K’s”. But sometimes things can change sufficiently that continuing to adhere to these…errr…Sebenizations? Sebeneezers?…to adhere these decisions can be actively inefficient/painful/harmful. If you’re ever feeling that pain and you ask the question “Why on Earth do we do it this way?” and the answer you get back is “Because this is how we’ve always done it!” …well…chances are you may have just been Sebenicked.