Chinese Idiom Stories for Software Professionals: #4 To win a war with words (纸上谈兵)
Be aware of Talkers!
This article is one of the “Chinese Idiom Stories for Software Professionals” series.
Story: To win a war with words
In the Warring States Period, the State of Zhao had a famous general named She (赵奢), whose son, Kuo (赵括), was very fond of reading military books discussing war strategy. Kuo could recite military books, and when discussing warfare he spoke clearly and logically that it seemed that even his father was not his match.
Later, the State of Qin attacked the State of Zhao, General She (赵奢) had already passed away. Zhao’s king appointed Kuo to lead 400,000 soldiers to defend. Due to Kuo’s lacking practical battle experience, he was defeated and lost his life. The majority of his soldiers were captured and then brutally buried alive.
Meaning
This idiom describes those who are good only at theorizing but lack practical experience. I call those people ‘talkers’.
Examples in Software Development
There is no shortage of ‘talkers’ in software teams, particularly in test automation and continuous testing (or CI/CD), both of which are practical and…
