Buxton Index: the primary timescale over which a person/org plans & makes decisions (3mo? 10yr?).
Useful bc it predicts conflict—descriptively, not normatively. Low-BI often sees high-BI as astronaut-ish; high often sees low as shallow.
Via Dijkstra: cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/tran
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Per Dijkstra: “[Close] co-operation between entities with very different Buxton Indices invariably fails and leads to moral complaints about the partner. … The Buxton Index is important to bear in mind when considering academic/industrial co-operation.”
Indeed!
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Reminds me of Jack Goldman setting up Xerox PARC: "don't expect anything valuable for 5 years, but you'll get something in 10"
I also vaguely remember an Alan Kay quote about how his work was only possible in this environment. One 5-year project != Five 1-year projects
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He's also said in a talk once that if you try and fit a 5 year project in 3 years it will take 10, but if you give it 5 years it will often take 3 (since you give yourself permission to explore much more in the beginning). I think that was in relation to the STEPS project funding