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Doesn't your anecdote actually support my primary point, which is that a programmer with limited knowledge and experience will typically produce poor-quality so

Doesn't your anecdote actually support my primary point, which is that a programmer with limited knowledge and experience will typically produce poor-quality software? (Or, to use your own terms, apps that are craptacular and awful?) An application, in my mind, is truly useful when it not only fulfils a user requirement, but is also dependable, scaleable and maintainable. It's not best practice for a business to base a process around some jury rigged POS that will be thrown away in horror when an experienced developer eventually gets a look at it. But hey, we can agree to differ on this.

watwut 9y ago
He produced useful, if poor quality, software. It did helped at a time and when it cease to be useful, it is small enough to be completely replaced with something else (instead of maintained). It is ok to throw away things and not everything needs to be scalable. It is also not best practice to base everything on the idea that everybody must be experienced senior to do anything. Many tasks are suitable for inexperienced juniors, because that is enough and it is small enough to throw it away if it goes bad. The things that were most useful for people I worked for were not the things that were most difficult to create.
CalRobert 9y ago
Eh, it was dependable enough to make money. It scaled to the task at hand. It was maintained longer than the Dart API was since Google retired it months later. "It's not best practice for a business to base a process around some jury rigged POS " I suspect you'll find plenty of businesses jury-rig a POS first, and then only fix what needs fixing. Turns out most stuff doesn't need it.
ryandrake 9y ago
For most companies, craptacular software is heaps better than what they already have (nothing). The point is, any newbie with ~3 months of training can write a non-beautiful non-scalable, line of business program that produces measurable value.

watwut 9y ago

He produced useful, if poor quality, software. It did helped at a time and when it cease to be useful, it is small enough to be completely replaced with something else (instead of maintained). It is ok to throw away things and not everything needs to be scalable. It is also not best practice to base everything on the idea that everybody must be experienced senior to do anything. Many tasks are suitable for inexperienced juniors, because that is enough and it is small enough to throw it away if it goes bad. The things that were most useful for people I worked for were not the things that were most difficult to create.

CalRobert 9y ago

Eh, it was dependable enough to make money. It scaled to the task at hand. It was maintained longer than the Dart API was since Google retired it months later. "It's not best practice for a business to base a process around some jury rigged POS " I suspect you'll find plenty of businesses jury-rig a POS first, and then only fix what needs fixing. Turns out most stuff doesn't need it.

ryandrake 9y ago

For most companies, craptacular software is heaps better than what they already have (nothing). The point is, any newbie with ~3 months of training can write a non-beautiful non-scalable, line of business program that produces measurable value.