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I totally agree with the article. I would like to add that it is also the fact that as a culture we stress features over bugs. Everyone says that security/logi

I totally agree with the article. I would like to add that it is also the fact that as a culture we stress features over bugs. Everyone says that security/logic bugs/ invalid data is a problem. I haven't worked for anyone that prioritizes security and bug fixing over features. As we gain more and more time in a product and with deadlines that don't make sense we basically get a whole pile of code that is unable to be tested in any amount of time given.

booleandilemma 9y ago
I haven't worked for anyone that prioritizes security and bug fixing over features. It’s a huge problem. Not only that, but adding new features comes with a certain prestige that fixing bugs doesn’t have. Every 2 weeks the developers in my company have a meeting to share the new features they worked on and they applaud and congratulate each other. There is no such meeting for what bugs are fixed. It’s seen as drudge work and no one wants to do it.
onion2k 9y ago
we stress features over bugs I don't think we do. We stress the needs of the user over everything (and rightly so in my opinion). Often that means a new feature is more important than a lot of minor bug fixes, but equally a critical results-in-data-loss bug or an important security patch will take priority over any new features. It's just that those things are actually quite rare in production code, so it feels like features always take precedence.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  > We stress the needs of the user over everything Imagined needs of an imagined user perhaps. And more and more that imagined user is a drooling idiot best left in a padded cell it seems...
  - onion2k 9y ago
    There's no need to imagine what users need. There are plenty of great products to capture data about what they do in your app, and you can always talk to them as well. As for them being "drooling idiots", I find that if a user is getting something seriously wrong it's almost always because a developer or a designer built something that's failing at being easy to use rather than the user being at fault.
- watwut 9y ago
  > We stress the needs of the user over everything (and rightly so in my opinion). We don't. We stress whatever is hot on forums. And sometimes we stress whatever the most overconfident person in the room pushes for - regardless of whether that person has empathy for the user or not.
tkahnoski 9y ago
Features bring in revenue, bugs represent risk to lose that revenue. If you're over-leveraged (as in debt) then you eventually hit an inflection point. However what I haven't seen is a good study of what that inflection point looks like in our industry. I can imagine some measures around lost sales due to feature parity vs attrition due to problems in quality. Both of these are unfortunately trailing indicators that you have a problem.
- user5994461 9y ago
  There can be lost sales due to quality. Clients usually have a demo or a trial before they buy.
  - tkahnoski 9y ago
    Very true. The risk applies at almost every stage.

booleandilemma 9y ago

I haven't worked for anyone that prioritizes security and bug fixing over features. It’s a huge problem. Not only that, but adding new features comes with a certain prestige that fixing bugs doesn’t have. Every 2 weeks the developers in my company have a meeting to share the new features they worked on and they applaud and congratulate each other. There is no such meeting for what bugs are fixed. It’s seen as drudge work and no one wants to do it.

onion2k 9y ago

we stress features over bugs I don't think we do. We stress the needs of the user over everything (and rightly so in my opinion). Often that means a new feature is more important than a lot of minor bug fixes, but equally a critical results-in-data-loss bug or an important security patch will take priority over any new features. It's just that those things are actually quite rare in production code, so it feels like features always take precedence.

digi_owl 9y ago
> We stress the needs of the user over everything Imagined needs of an imagined user perhaps. And more and more that imagined user is a drooling idiot best left in a padded cell it seems...
- onion2k 9y ago
  There's no need to imagine what users need. There are plenty of great products to capture data about what they do in your app, and you can always talk to them as well. As for them being "drooling idiots", I find that if a user is getting something seriously wrong it's almost always because a developer or a designer built something that's failing at being easy to use rather than the user being at fault.
watwut 9y ago
> We stress the needs of the user over everything (and rightly so in my opinion). We don't. We stress whatever is hot on forums. And sometimes we stress whatever the most overconfident person in the room pushes for - regardless of whether that person has empathy for the user or not.

tkahnoski 9y ago

Features bring in revenue, bugs represent risk to lose that revenue. If you're over-leveraged (as in debt) then you eventually hit an inflection point. However what I haven't seen is a good study of what that inflection point looks like in our industry. I can imagine some measures around lost sales due to feature parity vs attrition due to problems in quality. Both of these are unfortunately trailing indicators that you have a problem.

user5994461 9y ago
There can be lost sales due to quality. Clients usually have a demo or a trial before they buy.
- tkahnoski 9y ago
  Very true. The risk applies at almost every stage.