3 ms·
Building a house is very different from building a product. For example, timeline estimates for building a house can be reasonably ascertained; not so for softw
by brianpgordon 9y ago
Building a house is very different from building a product. For example, timeline estimates for building a house can be reasonably ascertained; not so for software.
It's the distinction between building something you've built before and architecting a new bridge or building. The latter is a creative effort with lots of variables that are extraordinarily hard to pin down into estimates that would be acceptable in spec house construction.
- mdpye 9y agoSo, your spec house is the yet-another-crud-webapp, where the spec is clear and the tech mature... Engineers do those too, but they aren't so much entrepreneurs as jobbing contractors or agencies
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dng88 9y agoStange about this house idea. In many cases like this ide I guess it may work. But in many cases we want to build something that is more like a movie. A dream. Most of us in the “soft”ware precisely not like hardware (like house or even computer as hardware). Even it hardware I bet most of us are working on the firmware at most but the manufacturing part. Somethings we cannot see. Something we have to feel a way trough. Imagine the x-windows, mac and windows’s gui part. That is hard part. Even network is hard. But not as concrete as house. Movie and dream. Please. And spec is hard to fix.
- sgc 9y agoIt's fine to move the analogy, but the point remains the same: The more confident you are in your own capacities, the easier it is to bid on a project. And to be confident in your capacities without it being simple hubris, you need to do difficult things that demonstrate to yourself what you are capable of accomplishing.