Absolute Versus Relative

As technologists and scientists, we are used to thinking in terms of absolute measurements - the room we are in has a specific temperature, our bank account has a specific number of dollars, the bug database has a certain set of bugs, and so on.

But as humans, most of the time, we aren’t that great at evaluating absolutes - we tend to think more in terms relative measures. We don’t think “it’s 65F in here, I’m cold” (unless we look at the thermostat), we feel cold relative to a bunch of things - and a 65F room can feel really warm if you just walked into it from outside in the winter.

Many of these relative measurements are essentially running averages. Wealth is a good example - if you ask most people how much wealth would make them content, the answer is usually roughly twice what they currently have, no matter what that amount is. We unconsciously keep a running tab and adjust to the usual state, and then compare from there.

This can happen in codebases, and in engineering teams too. If you’re not careful to measure the quality of your code and product clearly, and in absolute terms (bug count, latency, usage, etc), it’s very easy to acclimate and decide that something is more acceptable than it really is. The technical term for this is “because we always do it this way”. :)

People too - teams can slowly lower their standards in all kinds of ways, without really seeing it day-to-day: civility, engineering standards, velocity. If you look around you and most people aren’t working that hard, well, then in a relative sense, you don’t seem so bad, right? It’s very easy to build bad code, or worse, waste time in your career developing bad habits.

Not everything can be measured in absolute terms, and it’s not always useful to do so anyway. But it’s worth remembering - the frog that got boiled never noticed because he was running an average temperature calculation. :)