Eating our own dog food
The Arch of Titus was built in Rome in c. 81 AD. It’s 50’ tall and made of tons and tons of white marble. And it’s still standing almost 2,000 years after it was built.
At the peak of the Roman empire, you could pass under 50+ arches as you walked through Rome.
And they were ornate, not at all like the smooth metallic Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
The Romans built triumphal arches, early versions of Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Napoleon commissioned the Arc de Triomphe to honor those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. French masons, engineers, and laborers completed it in 1806.
The Roman author / philosopher Pliny the Elder said the first century Roman arches were meant to "elevate above the ordinary world.”
Carvings, sculpted reliefs, and statues commemorating generals and expansion and military victories.
When I was 20, I had a construction job building decks and retaining walls. I didn’t know how to build anything. I mostly carried lumber and cut 2x4s. I picked up lunch. I did whatever the foreman said.
Building stuff is hard enough in the 21st century with modern materials and design software like AutoCAD.
In 100 AD, it took lots of trial and error. Geometry and physics. No one wants to stand under a poorly built arch made of tons and tons of marble. For an arch to survive for almost 2,000 years, every angle matters.
Every chisel.
When I was on that crew building decks in central Indiana, my foreman was ultimately accountable for what we created. And he inspected my work. If he found an off-center board or an inaccurate cut, he’d tell me to pull it up and redo it.
One day, the foreman was sick and another worker stepped in to lead the team. When he came by for an inspection, I noticed one of my 2x4s in the deck frame wasn’t right. It was slightly off.
I offered to pull it and redo the work, and he replied by saying, “Don’t worry about it. It’ll look fine from my house.”
He lived 12 miles away.
“The ancient Romans had a tradition: whenever one of their engineers constructed an arch, as the capstone was hoisted into place, the engineer assumed accountability for his work in the most profound way possible: he stood under the arch.”
- Michael Armstrong (former Chairman of AT&T)
Whenever possible, we should use the stuff we create. We should stand under our own arches.
If we make chairs, we should sit in them. Are the legs consistently balanced and even? Does the angle of the chair’s back encourage good posture?
If we build software, we should use it ourselves. Is a button too hard to find? Does a task take three clicks when it should only take one? If we use it ourselves, we’ll know.
Modern product managers call that “eating your own dog food.”
Some of the Roman arches have survived almost 2,000 years of war and weather.
I helped build that deck in the summer of 2003.
I wonder if it’s still there.
