Strides Interactive

Best vs RightFiled Under: Weekly Tuesday Dose of goodness

Hi all,

In this article, I’ll talk about what’s best and what’s right using a general perspective.

It’s basically about why sometimes, when something appears to be the best appears to be not-so-right.

It happens all the time. The best, when measured in terms of logical capabilities, performs the worst compared the right person for the job.

To know more, read on…

First before we look at best and right, let’s take a step back and look at perspective.

All things in life usually has multiple perspectives. Which is why, there can be people who are far sighted and people who have myopic views on things.

Zooming in on best and right, I’ve come up with a perspective based on our context for these 2 words.

Best - General perspective
Right - Specific perspective

This alone already tells you that “Best” is definitely not always suitable or right for a certain requirement during a certain event.

Why is it so? It’s a general perspective! Otherwise it’s at most or at best, at a person’s own perspective. One’s perspective of best may not necessarily be the right perspective.

Let’s talk abt general perspective. Where does it come from? Generalization.

Where does Generalization come from? Discussions, speculations, trends, debates, and so on.

What’s the problem with Generalization? The biggest problem is that they don’t apply to all circumstances.

To be able to find the right solution, one has to consider both general and specific perspectives.

I’m going to list a few examples here:

In Romance of three kingdoms, Zhuge Liang pointed out that both Lu Bu and Yuan Shao estimate the outcome of war in terms of the bravery of their troops as well as their numbers. They believe that having a large army is the best for all war situations.

That’s a classical General perspective.

True, large armies usually destroy smaller armies. But this is not an absolute fact or law in the universe.

In the battle of Red Cliffs, historically, Cao Cao has about 150,000 troops committed to the battle. While the Sun/Liu Alliance only has about 50,000 troops.

The classical general perspective stands only if both armies battled on equal. That means, other than the difference in the sizes of their armies, all else are the same. For example:

1) Training in naval warfare
2) Quality of ships
3) Weaponary
4) aptitude and bravery of generals
5) Level of leadership of both sides

The question is - are they? No! Since none of the listed above are the same, the classical theory of large armies defeating small armies fall apart (though not completely).

Since there’s room for specific perspectives to come in, then the leaders of both sides must appreciate and consider them. Otherwise, if either disregard such perspectives, he’s doomed to fail.

For example, Cao Cao has grossly mis-estimated the character of Sun Quan, thinking that he’ll kill Liu Bei. This is indeed a generalization mentality he has used.

During the battle of Guandu, the Yuan family was defeated. The remaining two Yuans, namely, Yuan Shang and Yuan Xi fled to Wu Wan which is their allies.

In the end, they were killed by Gongsun Kang.

Now bringing it back here, Liu Bei isn’t Yuan Shang or Yuan Xi. Neither is Sun Quan, Gongsun Kang. Therefore this perspective doesn’t apply to Liu Bei and Sun Quan and therefore such a scenario will be unlikely, if not impossible.

Looking on the Sun-Liu Alliance, there were some very good specific perspectives mentioned:

1) Cao Cao has come a long way to the Red Cliff. His men is unlikely to quickly adapt to the warmer southern region and therefore can fall ill more easily
2) The region of Jingzhou which he had recently conquered isn’t stable and might possible go against him
3) Cao Cao’s army is mostly based on cavalry (since they come from the north) and is weak in naval warfare. Giving up this advantage, they lose a great deal of offensive and defensive capabilities
4) On the east side, there’re other lords like Ma Teng, Ma Chao and Han Sui. These people can take advantage of the situation and attack the capital. Defended against or not, once under attack, Cao Cao will feel the strain facing two fronts.

On top of that, despite the initial naval victory, Sun-Liu alliance knew that Cao Cao can still overcome them in greater numbers especially when their ships are already chained together.

Therefore, instead of relying on the general perspective, they came up with the idea to burn their enemies ships that was already chained together. Thus achieving a major victory.

This battle serves as a major lesson even to people who are developing applications or games alike.

How so?

Ask yourself, of all the “best” APIs you’ve used, how right is it? How suitable is the API afterall?

Are you avoiding the fact that you have to work on some codes to get certain things done?

Multiple APIs when combined, has complicated constraints. Is it worth dealing with this complication as compared to writing your own? Note that some of these APIs can be the BEST in the world.

So, once you know what’s best and what’s right, you’ll also know that the right perspective changes from time to time. There is no fixed “right” perspective in all time.

This will then lead us to the next article : Prioritization vs Gut Feelings

Regards,

Jeremy