The children's bedtime story [from a former(?) Russian satellite] version of this parable is a projector film slide series titled "The coloured pencil", from the same era. It cheekily teaches the parents on how a "cost driven market based" pencil factory had a brilliant innovator, arguing, that there is no need for graphite in the end of a pencil, since nobody can use pencils when they are shorter than a cm or so. The savings made on using less graphite was stellar, the innovator got promoted.
Seeing the success, soon the second innovation followed: what use is the wood at the end of the pencil, when there isn't any graphite inside? Less wood, more profit.
And this handling of "externalised" costs continued until the pencil became dysfunctional, unusable (Dijkstra as a programmer would notice the powerful idea of recursion).
The story ends with the reinvention of the pencil, and a huge prime for the genius.
Back to Dijkstra's version: an MBA market analyst would come up with a "research" study which concludes, that in order to improve the "user experience" of the customers on the train, at least (two) WC-s would be needed in each wagon, pocketing a hefty consulting fee for the ground breaking innovation.
Seeing the success, soon the second innovation followed: what use is the wood at the end of the pencil, when there isn't any graphite inside? Less wood, more profit.
And this handling of "externalised" costs continued until the pencil became dysfunctional, unusable (Dijkstra as a programmer would notice the powerful idea of recursion).
The story ends with the reinvention of the pencil, and a huge prime for the genius.
Back to Dijkstra's version: an MBA market analyst would come up with a "research" study which concludes, that in order to improve the "user experience" of the customers on the train, at least (two) WC-s would be needed in each wagon, pocketing a hefty consulting fee for the ground breaking innovation.