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LifeLines

What umbilical cords are necessary to keep a project alive? -- HuwLloyd 2004.10.15

So far:

• You don't die, if you miss a project deadline.
• Others must want the project output.
• Be willing to postpone lower priority features.
• You need money.
• Include tickle points where state is honestly evaluated.

For me, then, the first umbilical cord for keeping a project alive is realizing that nobody is going to die because you don't please the manager, regardless of all the threats and talk of deadlines. Nothing brings a project closer to death than the feeling that you're in a life-or-death situation when you're not. - JerryWeinberg 2004.10.15

DwaynePhillips 16 October 2004

That reminds me of some programmers I used to work with. The only thing that would animate them in the afternoon was the necromantic spell of 'Tee-ene-won' -- HuwLloyd 2004.10.16

So one more lifeline: willingness to postpone lower priority features.

MikeMelendez 041018

The site I noted says that use of deadline may not be related to the time limit use of deadline which can be traced back to its use in newspaper publishing in the early 20th century. And neither, I would guess, is related to the use of deadline in fishing. Do you have a reference to the contrary demonstrating the link? Dead and line are very common words that consequently take on a very large number of meanings.

That said, I agree that a deadline is frequently used to suggest dire things will happen if it is not met. However, in my limited experience, extending deadlines is far more common than that. After the first few times that happened to me, the meaning of dead became, well, dead. Given a deadline, I plan for what I can get done in that time. Given the threat of dire events if some larger task is assigned against the deadline is harder, but I'm learning to use my "Yes/No" medallion against that effort.

MikeMelendez 2004.10.18

A time limit, as for payment of a debt or completion of an assignment.

A boundary line in a prison that prisoners can cross only at the risk of being shot.

From "Take Our Word for It":

I'd like to know the origin of the word deadline. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the word refers to a line drawn around a prison over which crossing prisoners could be shot. If only I could do that with all the contributors to my company newsletter who miss the submission deadline!

Merriam-Webster does indeed claim that the word is related to prisoners, and they cite 1864 as the year of the word's first appearance in the written record. This jibes with what Mike and I recall about the word originating during the American Civil War: prisoners in that war were seldom held in purpose-built jails. More often, they were herded at gunpoint inside a makeshift boundary. The boundary had two lines, and a prisoner who stepped outside the inner boundary was ordered back, but one who over-stepped the outer boundary was shot. Thus, it was called the deadline.

- JerryWeinberg 2004.10.19

I think you've missed my point. I agree that both uses of the word exist, as does it's use in fishing, as my reference indicates. Instead, I have doubts about whether the time limit usage derives from the Civil War prison usage. This is a different issue, one of etymology, not definition. I propose a widely accepted source to settle the etymology question: the OED. I would accept their judgement. Would you?

So you understand why I even questioned your proposed derivation, let me explain. I've studied a few foreign languages and am always amazed at the difficulty of literal translation, even when the words share the same root and almost the same form, though I understand it's due to very different contexts of word use. The prison use and the time limit use of deadline differ substantially in context. In one, you avoid the deadline without reference to accomplishing any specific task. In the other, you will cross the deadline whether or not you accomplish the task named by the deadline. Add that deadline is a compound of two common words and I favor the conclusion that both prison deadline and time limit deadline derived from the various meanings of those two common words. IOW, I find an hypothesis of shared origins more compelling than that of post hoc. But that's just me. Knowing that, I searched the web (not owning an OED and not having access to the OED site). I found many linking the definitions based solely on the use of the same word, which isn't what etymology is about. I found one attempting to make a connection through print references, which is etymology, but which had large gaps in the historical record. The one I referenced seemed the best summary. -- MikeMelendez 2004.10.19

First, the "time limit" use was not one of the definitions. I can only guess that in the research for this 1973 edition, this usage was still professional jargon, since my web search places the known origin in the 1920's newspaper industry. More recent dictionaries place the "time limit" use as the first, sometimes only, definition, though without etymologies.

Second, the "dead" in the "prison" use comes not from the prisoners being shot dead if they crossed it, but from an Old English usage of the word "dead" meaning "not moving". Only it is not the prisoners who would not be moving, but the line itself. This appears to be (my guess) an archaic opposite of a "running line", a combination I am familiar with from my shipboard time. Still, I can imagine the Union soldiers, being human, saying "Don't step over that deadline. If you do, you'll be dead just like the line."

Given how readily we slip "deadlines" in the software industry, the term gains an aura of wishful thinking, if not for the same reason, then with the same spirit as Jerry suggested. I can also imagine the Union soldiers opening the deadline and adding to it so more Confederate prisoners can be squeezed in.

Being curious, I tried googgling "fishing" and "deadline". I got endless time limit uses. Then, lightbulb on, I tried "deadline fishing". I got three pointers but only one site that mentioned it, apropos a survival course the writer had taken.

". . . you live off of the land (trout deadline fishing, squirrel/rabbit snare, edible and medicinal plants) . . ."

MikeMelendez 2004.10.22