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studyinglifewithgigi's review
3.0
Incredibly insightful on American infrastructure and our society while maintaining a nonpartisan stance!
dashtaisen's review
informative
3.0
This book is really just a book-length remix of their article “Hail the Maintainers”. I thought the article was better than the book.
The first couple of chapters are quite good; the authors illustrate how the obsession with “innovation” emerged from the anxieties of the 1970s economic crisis and the hype generated by Silicon Valley. There are some thoughtful critiques of innovation and the highly-paid consulting firms that push them. I also appreciate their central point, that we need to focus less on newness and more on maintenance and care.
That said, the examples were kind of all over the place – sometimes insightful, often meandering, overly focused on the military, also weirdly fatphobic for some reason? The authors call for us to appreciate maintainers more, which is great! But then they go to an example about the importance of “passion” by Linus Effing Torvalds of all people. In a couple of anecdotes, the authors make an offhand remark about maintenance workers’ union affiliation, but don’t go into any meaningful detail around worker organizing. This seems especially strange given how many high-profile strikes have been organized by people whose work is central to social and economic infrastructure.
The first couple of chapters are quite good; the authors illustrate how the obsession with “innovation” emerged from the anxieties of the 1970s economic crisis and the hype generated by Silicon Valley. There are some thoughtful critiques of innovation and the highly-paid consulting firms that push them. I also appreciate their central point, that we need to focus less on newness and more on maintenance and care.
That said, the examples were kind of all over the place – sometimes insightful, often meandering, overly focused on the military, also weirdly fatphobic for some reason? The authors call for us to appreciate maintainers more, which is great! But then they go to an example about the importance of “passion” by Linus Effing Torvalds of all people. In a couple of anecdotes, the authors make an offhand remark about maintenance workers’ union affiliation, but don’t go into any meaningful detail around worker organizing. This seems especially strange given how many high-profile strikes have been organized by people whose work is central to social and economic infrastructure.
rick2's review
4.0
Strong condemnation of those who pay lip service to innovation and creation at the expense of actually building something. And the author advocates that maintenance and upkeep are just as important, if not more so, than the novel creation of technology
clocs's review
5.0
Summary: maintenance over innovation. Keep what's working working -- instead of making new things.
Success survives on maintenance. System succeed when their tools work and the ground beneath them is stable. The obvious contrary is systems can't succeed if their tools aren't working and the ground is crumbling beneath them.
They make strong connections to maintaining the body, keeping house, maintaining infrastructure (roads, railroads, water, sewage).
I found this book insightful and inspiring a strong perspective shift in our modern obsession with making new stuff.
I re-read it twice in Audio and am now highlighting in Kindle.
Strong recommendation for all.
Success survives on maintenance. System succeed when their tools work and the ground beneath them is stable. The obvious contrary is systems can't succeed if their tools aren't working and the ground is crumbling beneath them.
They make strong connections to maintaining the body, keeping house, maintaining infrastructure (roads, railroads, water, sewage).
I found this book insightful and inspiring a strong perspective shift in our modern obsession with making new stuff.
I re-read it twice in Audio and am now highlighting in Kindle.
Strong recommendation for all.