>For my washing machine, they were unknown unknowns - I didn’t even expect there’d be a hole to drill, new hoses to buy, a cold water tap cap to remove, and a spigot PVC wall to drill out.
No, most of this was something that could have easily been known if checked after the first trip to the store but before going there again, or at minimum before the third trip. It was just so painful to read how there was absolutely zero planning and checking before execution.
While you can also do many checks and plans in software development and deployment (like calculating if the thing you want to calculate given your resources is even remotely possible, back of the envelope calculations, you know), there's still many more things that are much harder to know about and check in advance, and there's not usually a huge cost (going to the store) associated with problem solving each time.
This was painful, because like software development, he didn't bother to read the manual at all first before estimating how long it would take :)
It's like saying
"i'm going to use the following pieces of software in my app:x,y,z. All previous times someone else has built all scaffolding for me, so i've never had to start from scratch. Here i'm going to start from scratch, but i'm not going to read any of the getting started guides or look for examples before estimating how long it will take me to make this scaffolding or app. I'm also not going to ask anyone who might have greater knowledge than me. Instead, i'm going to assume it took them zero time and zero knowledge to build the scaffolding i used to use and proceed apace."
I would be totally and completely shocked if the washer did not have complete instructions on connections. I just looked, and every bosch manual i can find includes directions on how to do the hookups. If he spent 1 minute looking at which hookup he had, it would have been obvious that:
A. there was a cap on the hookup
B. the hoses could not reach
etc
The only one that is probably not as documented is the pvc inside cap - but these exist on everything and are required by code. Any good DIY book will tell you about them.
They've also got the reason wrong there. Or at least one of them. It's also done so they can test the system for leaks effectively.
You can't really test for leaks if you have a holes that go to nowhere :)
Agreed on this being a painful read. Starting with this being a 10 minute job. Based on what? Assumptions are the.. etc. You assumed everthing was plug&play ready. Who told you that?
Anyway, after the second trip, before going on a third, he still didn't think to actually check the complete 'requirements' for his trip to the hardware store. You buy a part for your drill, but don't check if it will fit your drill? Why not bring the drill and then take a picture of the job site, if you are going to ask the people at the store for help anyway.
It's like downloading a compiler, write lot's of code in Python and then being annoyed it's a C++ compiler or whatever. Same for the "not actually extendable hose". Maybe call the wife, or just buy the hose and return it if you don't need it on another trip to the hardware store later that day or week when you pass there. Just painful, no planning or thinking.
The only thing I can imagine just being domain knowledge, is that the spigot needed a hole to be drilled eventhough it has an inlet which I would also assume was open.
I think it was somewhat reasonable for the author to assume it would be a 10-minute job when it had been that way in the previous places he lived. Realizing that a brand-new house might be "unfinished" in some ways is something you might not know if you've only lived in places where there was a previous owner that took care of all the unfinished bits.
But I agree that once the author realized he needed to go to the hardware store a second time, he should have gone through the motions of pre-checking every step he'd need to perform so he could see what else wasn't right.
"I think it was somewhat reasonable for the author to assume it would be a 10-minute job when it had been that way in the previous places he lived."
I don't - in all of those, the author knew someone else had done the work for them.
It's like always having had scaffolding built for you, and then when you have to do it from scratch, assuming the scaffolding required zero time and zero knowledge to build, and being surprised when it doesn't.
Here's a fun thing that most software developers never do that works, and would have also worked here: He could have asked.
"Hey random internet people, i'm about to install a washer in my new home. All of my previous homes i was not the first owner, but here I am. What do i need to think about here?"
A quick search shows lots of people have asked on reddit and get correct answers for their situations. I don't see one where they got bad advice.
The fact that software developers assume it's reasonable to not bother to seek knowledge when you know the situation has changed says more about software development than it does about reasonability :)
They knew nobody else had done it for them here the second they hit a single issue.
Why not step back at that point and try to understand the entire problem you may be facing?
This like people who build software by just fixing one bug they see at a time by trying to make the compiler happy or whatever, instead of stepping back and thinking about the system as a whole - what other assumptions are likely wrong if you had this bug?
Worse, here there was a very easy solution: Ask questions before you start.
Just because it's common for software developers to not bother to ask people for knowledge they don't have doesn't mean it's a good answer.
>For my washing machine, they were unknown unknowns - I didn’t even expect there’d be a hole to drill, new hoses to buy, a cold water tap cap to remove, and a spigot PVC wall to drill out.
No, most of this was something that could have easily been known if checked after the first trip to the store but before going there again, or at minimum before the third trip. It was just so painful to read how there was absolutely zero planning and checking before execution.
While you can also do many checks and plans in software development and deployment (like calculating if the thing you want to calculate given your resources is even remotely possible, back of the envelope calculations, you know), there's still many more things that are much harder to know about and check in advance, and there's not usually a huge cost (going to the store) associated with problem solving each time.