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Completely agree! Love the quote "Code is a liability. Functionality and business value are assets."

• scarejunba 8y ago
  The Goal has a bunch of insights translatable to software engineering. This is one of them.
  • dwd 8y ago
    Very much so, and an easy read. Unfortunately so much development is "build it and they will come" rather than analysing and improving a system or solving a specific issue - which may or may not involve coding.
• C1sc0cat 8y ago
  Well some times a lot of effort is expended on "functionality" when its not a good use of time. I worked at one company where a level 2 Engineer was bucking for promotion and spent almost a year (wall time) and ten plus man years redeveloping a system in Oracle that was functionality but added no real value.
  • quanticle 8y ago
    That reinforces my point. This developer didn't add any functionality. Functionality implies value. It implies that the software is functional towards a business goal. So, in my view, this developer added a bunch of code without generating any new functionality, increasing your liabilities while leaving your assets the same. And yes, I've seen this same behavior as well, at other large firms. The best way to get a promotion is often to launch something, so people launch, and don't worry about whether the thing they've launched adds any new functionality, or is yet another reimplementation of an existing framework that will make some junior developer miserable.