The Minority Report

I wanted to post about this two weeks ago when I read it but since it’s a slow news day, I’m posting it today.

I’ve always been fascinated by the expression “Eating Your Own Dogfood” and I agree with Jeff Atwood that it was a term that likely came from Microsoft. I remember hearing this term years ago and thought it was good practice. It gives me great comfort actually that the engineers at Microsoft have been using Windows 7, for example, since it was alpha. There is just no substitute for debugging software unless you are using it.

This blog, for another example, get’s “fixed” almost daily as I keep jumping around the site looking at how someone from the outside might read it/use it. Now of course I have like -67 readers but someday I might have 2 and I want them to be able to use the site to find and read something interesting just once or twice.

In software circles, dogfooding refers to the practice of using your own products. It was apparently popularized by Microsoft:

The idea originated in television commercials for Alpo brand dog food; actor Lorne Greene would tout the benefits of the dog food, and then would say it’s so good that he feeds it to his own dogs. In 1988, Microsoft manager Paul Maritz sent Brian Valentine, test manager for Microsoft LAN Manager, an email titled “Eating our own Dogfood” challenging him to increase internal usage of the product.

Buried deep in Eric Sink’s post Yours, Mine and Ours is perhaps the ultimate example of the power of dogfooding.

A guy named Stephen Gass has come up with an amazing solution to this problem. He is a woodworker, but he also has a PhD in physics. His technology is called Sawstop. It consists of two basic inventions:

* He has a sensor which can detect the difference in capacitance between a finger and a piece of wood.
* He has a way to stop a spinning table saw blade within 1/100 of a second, less than a quarter turn of rotation.

The videos of this product are amazing. Slide a piece of wood into the spinning blade, and it cuts the board just like it should. Slide a hot dog into the spinning blade, and it stops instantly, leaving the frankfurter with nothing more than a nick.

Coding Horror: The Ultimate Dogfooding Story

Anyway, in typical meadering style, I have told you that dribble to get to the punch line. Jeff Atwood found the coolest case of “eating your own dogfood” on the net.

You’re not going to believe this video and I’ve watched it like 20 times. Incredible.