Cracked Windshields
Everyone knows that it becomes increasingly more expensive to fix a bug as it gets deeper in the process. A similar principle applies to almost all problems: they’re like cracked windshields. Cracks are small and insidious. A simple crack doesn’t pose any serious threat, and it’s easy to ignore. However, if you ignore the crack, it slowly spreads across the windshield. Windshields take constant beatings - thousands of tiny attacks that are readily deflected. Once the windshield is weakened by a crack, the entire thing can shatter.
When small problems are allowed to fester, they compound and become much bigger problems.
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Your windshield metaphor is more apt than you think. Most window cracks start as an easily repair chip. Repairing chips is easy, but if you wait until it’s a crack you basically have to replace the entire windshield.
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Now that you say that, I should have used the word “chip” instead of “crack” in a couple places.