
Billionaire, Board Game God and Tech's Hidden Disruptor (2019) - fogus
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2019/04/29/meet-matt-calkins-billionaire-board-game-god-and-techs-hidden-disruptor/
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spapas82
The company I worked for before ~ 8 years (a bank) was using Appian for a
bunch of its non-core workflows and actually was in the process of using it
even more.

Appian is a strange beast: It's a BPMS written as a Java web application that
has an in-memory kdb (the db of the K programming language which is well-known
in HN) for storing all process data.

The greatest advantage of Appian as compared to other workflow systems I've
used (Activiti, jBPM etc) is that it offers a really complete environment for
creating a more or less complete workflow without the need to write code. So
you can actually teach non-technical people to do it. I remember we had a
couple of Business Analysts that were creating very complex workflows back
then. The didn't have any technical knowledge; their background was mostly on
economics. Of course, for integration with legacy systems or relational
databases or doing some tricky UI you'd still need a developer. But most of
the work could be done by a not so tehnical guy which is the holy grail of
such systems. Also, it was a really complete system where you could rather
easily implement all your workflow needs (workflow design, user tasks,
notifications, exceptions, integrations, reporting, authorizations, business
rules, subprocessing, parallel execution etc). After some initial
configuration you'd rarely need to touch code unless you needed some custom
bpm nodes.

Appian was also claiming that because it was using the kdb as a database
backend it was very fast. I don't have an opinion on this; it wasn't slow but
wasn't blazing fast. And also when the kdb size grew too much (we're talking
some tens of GBs) it was taking a really long time to start (half an hour or
something) and needed the same amount of memory from the server (IIRC we had
64GB back then) because it needed to load the kdbs into memory. Also I
remember that we had a constant fear that the kdbs will be compromised somehow
(for example if the server rebooted unnormally) and we'll lose data. Or maybe
I had that fear; I was never able to "trust" it as I could trust the good-old
IBM DB2 database the bank had. Concerning data-loss, we had a bunch of
incidents that were related to having configured appian as a cluster; after we
switched to a single server it was better. The good thing (or maybe bad
because I was never able to learn K) is that it had a complete API in Java so
we didn't actually need to touch the kdbs; I remember with awe however when we
had a support request where an Appian engineer was using K to actually query
the kdb and see the status of our server.

In any case, the main drawback of Appian is how expensive it was. I don't
remember how much but I remember that the bank had a special agreement to have
a low price for Appian (don't exaclty now the details); buying it fully was
too expensive even for the bank (!) (especially if it was to be used by all
employees since it had a per user fee).

Beyond all these, I belive that Appian is a solid product and deserves its
success in the enterprise world.

~~~
bob1029
We are providing similar services to several financial institutions using a
first-party solution we have developed over the course of the last 5 years.
Our approach for enabling non-technical people to impact the business is on a
radically-different side of the spectrum though. Instead of "no/low" code with
fancy UIs and modules, we went in the other direction. We asked the following
question:

"Can we reorganize the codebase in order to expose common business concerns in
such a way that non-technical people can reason with them simply by viewing
the source code?"

The answer so far has been a resounding "Yes". We proved that there was
extreme amounts of value in non-technical people being able to read the
current state of the business implementation. Using functional business rules
instead of imperative ones makes all the difference in the world. E.g.
"if(CustomerIsAMinor) {...}" vs "if(customer.Age<MinorLimit &&
someothercondition) {...}". Using C#8 and having the ability to use functional
paradigms as well as things like pattern matching also enable us to write
highly expressive code that non-technical people enjoy reading. Also, really
basic stuff like splitting important points of focus into class partials can
make it 10x easier for non-developers to get into that 1 focused file and
understand what is going on (e.g. MyBankWorkflow.CustomerValidations.cs).

But we didn't stop there. We then asked this question:

"Could non-developers make changes to certain areas of the codebase?"

We have done a few trials with our project managers and are finding that they
are more than capable of: turning a new branch in GitHub, checking it out
locally, opening Visual Studio, updating a parameter listing or resource file,
making a commit, and then submitting a PR for review (typically by an actual
developer). As confidence with this practice grows, we will further expand the
"safe" areas of the codebase (i.e. what non-developers are allowed to edit).

Ultimately, we are trying to move into a direction where the development team
is more of an internal consulting group rather than the means by which every
line of code must be authored. The other view of this is that highly-
intelligible source code is also useful for quickly ramping new employees and
growing the team. We are beginning to view our codebase as not just a tool for
the developers, but something that anyone in the organization should be able
to work with in some useful way.

If you think more broadly about this cyberpunk reality we are sliding into,
this is the only reasonable path. You have to enable everyone in your
organization relative to the technology. You cant afford to slap a Fisher
Price UI around every scary technical thing you run into. Tear down your silos
and do not be afraid to show code to your project managers or even customers.
Start writing your new business apps with these ideas in mind and you may reap
some very unexpected benefits down the road.

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gazzini
The segue from winning at board games -> winning at business is great, but
then it goes into slightly too much detail about Appian.

I‘ve accepted that native advertising & PR are everywhere, but still... I wish
it could just be a cool story about a billionaire board game champ (awesome!)
without the embedded enterprise software ad (lame!).

[edit: typo]

~~~
MithrilTuxedo
That was my takeaway too. What games?

I assume the author of the article wouldn't have recognized the names of any
good board games.

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busterarm
Sekigahara, as a board game duel, is an experience approaching the divine. It
is a very, very, very fine game.

Pictured behind him is a fine collection. A lot of great and interesting
games, though I would have expected more war games...stuff like Fire In The
Lake, Sword of Rome, etc.

~~~
cthalupa
Sekigahara is excellent, and yeah, I am surprised there is not more of a GMT
collection behind him. After having designed Sekigahara, it seems like most
everything they publish would be up his alley.

Which reminds me, I need to go look at what GMT has in P500 now. It's been a
few months...

~~~
busterarm
Heh, this article also prompted me to order some new things, like the new
edition of Labyrinth and the P500 for Sword of Rome, which I've wanted for a
while.

That Risk is present in the photo but not Diplomacy is a tragedy. :D

~~~
qznc
I gave away my Diplomacy box after playing it once. It is so much easier to
get a round started online.

On the other hand, a wall of board games is for signaling as well and thus
your lament is valid.

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colmvp
The fact he has Gloomhaven to the right of him made me chuckle. I've only had
one chance to play it, and it took hours of fumbling around with the
instructions with my friends (who also hadn't played it) but once we got the
hang of the instructions it was very, very fun.

~~~
prepend
I liked that, to his left, he had Fortress America, Shogun, and what I think
is Conquest of the Empire, the three other games in the same series as Axis
and Allies.

~~~
Aeolun
Personally I was pretty happy to see Risk. Not many people seem interested in
playing large strategy board games.

~~~
PakG1
There are a lot of large strategy board games that are much nicer than Risk
these days. The world has come a long way since Risk was created. Risk 2210
A.D. is much greater, and there are other games even greater than that. I
think large co-op board games can be especially fun.

~~~
dwd
Risk seems to get a lot of hate these days.

BoardGameGeeks rankings push it way down, which seems to be a common theme for
popular mainstream games. Though the ones at the bottom like Monopoly and Game
of Life are truly horrible and give board games a bad rap: fulling deserving
of their ranking.

To the right of Risk looks to be Stratego which was a fun game when I was a
kid.

~~~
cosmodisk
I appreciate there are more sophisticated games out there but what's the issue
with Monopoly?

~~~
chottocharaii
Pure dice roll & has a trivial strategy for perfect play

~~~
cosmodisk
Being simple and linear doesn't make it bad: I can equally enjoy playing super
mario and Fallout,even though they are quite different in terms of gameplay.

~~~
tomgp
The linearity and randomness aren’t the main problems. Play length and run-
away winner are far worse issues. It’s possible to lose the game in the first
couple of trips round the board and still have a couple of hours of slowly
being ground down. One person might have fun no one else does.

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pixelpoet
I thought this article would be about Demis Hassabis, but I guess he's not a
billionaire.

~~~
CamperBob2
Wasn't he thrown out of a Go tournament for running a bot? Seems like I read
something to that effect.

~~~
pixelpoet
Well there was his company DeepMind developing a Go AI (AlphaGo / AlphaZero)
that can beat pros, at least 10 years before anyone though it would be
possible.

He doesn't strike me as the kind to cheat at tournaments, being one of the
best general game players of all time as I recall.

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Schwolop
It seems a fair few tech entrepreneurs and folks in the software industry are
also into designing games. I have several in the works, and one that’s very
slowly building a following: [https://www.drtomallen.com/half-the-
battle.html](https://www.drtomallen.com/half-the-battle.html)

~~~
cableshaft
I'm in the software industry and I design board games. Of course I used to
develop video games before that, so it wasn't a huge leap, although I didn't
really have the urge to start doing it until I had gone down the board game
rabbit hole for a few years and played hundreds of modern board games.

I have one game signed, but not yet released, by a publisher, and another game
was selected as a finalist in the Cardboard Edison design contest this year.

It's basically a lot more fun way to do system design. You can take a lot of
the same processes and apply it to board game design.

~~~
rhlsthrm
Can you give an example of how you can apply software system design principles
to boardgame design? Genuinely curious.

~~~
9214
I second that, extremely interested myself. Also if insights into board game
design can be adapted in a software engineering setting.

~~~
cableshaft
I replied and gave a few examples to the parent comment, if you're interested.

~~~
9214
Thanks a lot! Am eager to read that short Kindle book you mentioned ;)

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zingar
I followed links to find out more about the games referenced and I’m
astonished to see a two player game that advertises 180 minute duration.
Anything that long would have to be multiplayer to justify its existence in my
schedule. Terra mystica is hitting the multiplayer sweet spot at 90ish
minutes, and I’m a beginner.

~~~
cableshaft
It's a war game. War games are allowed to be that long.

I've played games of Terra Mystica that have taken 3+ hours, just depends on
the group. Although they were at least 4 player games.

Twilight Struggle can easily take that long, and it's only a 2 player game. If
it doesn't take that long, someone probably lost early on, or both players
know the game really well and can play it quickly.

Longest multiplayer game I've ever played was Diplomacy. We played for 12
hours, and had to call it early at that point. Even with it being that long, I
felt the game was going at a breakneck pace and I didn't feel like I had
hardly any time to grab food or go to the bathroom, because I had to talk to
everyone and figure out what the hell to do for my next turn (and make sure I
heard as much as I could from other people talking). It was an awesome
experience I'm not in a hurry to do again anytime soon.

~~~
busterarm
In college we would have marathon weekends where we'd stay up for three days
and play multiple games of Diplomacy, Big Two and Mahjong.

We generally ended up with a 2 or 3 player victory in Dip after about 7 or 8
hours. Very rarely did we push those solo victory games, but we would play a
few times a week besides those weekends.

I must have played 50 in-person Diplomacy games in one year and another 100 or
so online. It became an addiction. Lost thousands playing mj too.

Fun times.

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irrational
I see Concordia right behind his head. A man of good taste.

But I also see light party games like Dixit, so he doesn’t just play cerebral
euro games.

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Ftuuky
Unrelated to the article itself but that fossil behind him in his home is
gorgeous and super cool.

