
Why to never follow rules - d3v3r0
http://alexsblog.org/2014/05/16/why-to-never-follow-rules/
======
georgemcbay
Some rules exist for really good reasons. Reasons which may not be immediately
clear to you if you are just being exposed to them.

I would say you should always question why specific rules exist, and you
should feel free to challenge and sometimes break them if they are pointless
bureaucracy, but choose your battles and don't rebel just for the sake of
rebelling. Leave that for the 16 year olds.

~~~
dalke
I have a hard time even grasping the argument. When I read:

"Instead, dismiss any other rules than yours immediately. Show them that this
is your game and they have to play by your rules and not otherwise. Introduce
them confidently on your playground."

I think about rules like "you must use version control" and "the test suite
must pass before you push to the main repository."

These might be hard and fast rules at one organization, but not another. I
interpreted the quoted statement to mean that it's okay for someone from the
latter to dismiss a strict "don't break Jenkins" rule immediately.

Using the underlying playground metaphor, that's quickly going to leave the
person playing alone in a playground that no one visits.

I prefer the suggestion of the old maxim: "Know the rules before you break
them", which is pretty well aligned with your suggestion.

Also, the closing line - "You can be shark or fish. Not both." \- is
biologically wrong. A shark is a fish. Indeed, I like the metaphor as well: No
matter how hard a shark may try, it's still a fish.

~~~
zimpenfish
The old maxim is even wiser than you quoted.

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”

[http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/16419-know-the-rules-well-
so...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/16419-know-the-rules-well-so-you-can-
break-them-effectively)

(Also, if you believe QI, there's debate about whether a classification of
'fish' can even exist since it covers such a wide range of species as to be
essentially meaningless. But I'm not an icthyologist.)

~~~
dalke
The maxim is older than that. For example,
[http://books.google.se/books?id=ibJMAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Learn+the+...](http://books.google.se/books?id=ibJMAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Learn+the+rules+before+you+break+them%22&dq=%22Learn+the+rules+before+you+break+them%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OAJ2U-yyIcfV4QTeioCABQ&redir_esc=y)
gives a 1921 citation to "The Bookman", volume 60 for "Learn the rules before
you break them."

Followed by "Of course there are always the great exceptions. Genius is far
rarer than people think, and genius has ways of its own."

The problem I have with online quotations, including those from goodreads, is
that few people make an effort to verify the quotation. For example, one of
the variations I know is listed at
[http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/558213-learn-the-rules-
like-...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/558213-learn-the-rules-like-a-pro-
so-you-can-break) ; it attributes "learn the rules like a pro, so you can
break them like an artist" to Picasso. However, I can find no citation to
Picasso actually saying that.

Quotation is one of the places where I've found it best to reference something
like Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. I actually did check my dated paper copy
before posting, but it doesn't have an entry for a quote like this under
"rule" or "break". That's why I just said it was a maxim. ;)

BTW, Snopes, at
[http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/dalai.asp](http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/dalai.asp),
says the Dalai Lama didn't say/write the above attributed line. Instead, it's
a false attribution in an email chain going around in 2000, derived from an
older email chain, derived in turn from "Life's Little Instruction Book"
(1991) which said "Learn the rules then break some."

~~~
zimpenfish
Ah, thanks for the Snopes link. I didn't think to check there, my apologies.

