Re:Ask HN: Why do such strong opinions exist in our industry?
by dragonwriter on Sunday August 11, 2019 @08:37PM
(#20671506)
> Namely, why do opinions tend to completely trump evidence for technical decisions?
Because evidence that isolates the effect of the technical choices under discussion from all outside effects and is directly and unambiguously applicable to the context in which it needs to be applied basically doesn't exist for most technical decisions in our industry.
The evidence which is clear tends to be on questions which are distant from business value, the questions the get directly at business value tend to have unclear/ambiguous evidence.
Because evidence that isolates the effect of the technical choices under discussion from all outside effects and is directly and unambiguously applicable to the context in which it needs to be applied basically doesn't exist for most technical decisions in our industry.
The evidence which is clear tends to be on questions which are distant from business value, the questions the get directly at business value tend to have unclear/ambiguous evidence.