Citations:yak shaving
Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary
- 2002 September 22, Towse, "Want to knock someone off (or just give them indigestion)?"[1], misc.writing, Usenet,
- So I was yak shaving -- checking up on the tachycardial effects of nutmeg being as billo hasn't popped in with information on dosage limits for those ingesting nutmeg for its psychoactive effects -- when I should be writing about tegestology or some such thing.
- 2005, Mark Frauenfelder, Make: Technology on Your Time[2], ISBN 0596009224, page 11,
- Our anti-yak-shaving research is still ongoing (current estimates indicate between five minutes and 50 years before we have it licked).
- 2007, Dana Moore et al., Professional Rich Internet Applications: AJAX and Beyond[3], ISBN 0470082801, page 11,
- A lot of traditional RCP application development as we have come to know it involves a great deal of what is now called yak shaving.
- 2008 April 16, Peter da Silva, "Re:Microsoft versus Digital Equipment Corporation"[4], alt.folklore.computers, Usenet,
- […] otherwise the pager needs to start doing a bunch of unnecessary yak shaving.
- 2008 1 March, Zed Shaw, " You Used Ruby to Write WHAT?!" [5], CIO,
- "Yak shaving" is a programmer's slang term for the distance between a task's start and completion and the tangential tasks between you and the solution. If you ever wanted to mail a letter, but couldn't find a stamp, and had to drive your car to get the stamp, but also needed to refill the tank with gas, which then let you get to the post office where you could buy a stamp to mail your letter—then you've done some yak shaving.
