Small Matter of Programming (SMOP) was among the "games" described in an article written under the pseudonym Shedley, Ethan I. (April 1, 1971), "Big System Games", Datamation, vol. 17, no. 7, Technical Publishing Company, 1301 South Grove Ave., Barrington, Illinois 60010, pp. 22–25, as parallelling the Games People Play identified by Dr. Eric Berne in the field of self-help psychology. The game essentially consists of proposing seemingly simple adjustments to a design, and leaving to someone else the problem of fitting the unexpected consequences into the schedule.
The implication of using it is either
- to remind one's colleagues that every design change seems like a small matter of programming, until implementation starts, or
- to reassert by irony one's awareness of the danger of underestimating required effort.
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