4 ms·

>So the companies always had a successful exit even if the codebase passed onto the acquiring company or to the public investors had major issues.. so at least

>So the companies always had a successful exit even if the codebase passed onto the acquiring company or to the public investors had major issues.. so at least in my experience there's no feedback loop to correct the issues. In a sense, it sounds like there is nothing to correct! Would moving more slowly and deliberately have improved the exit, or worsened it? Perhaps code quality has only a tenuous link to business outcomes.

Jach 7y ago
I periodically think about this line I found on the C2 wiki: "I believe it is time to explicitly state the long held secret of software, we do not need to do design; design is ineffective and costly." --Wayne Mack It's really hard to argue with a money printing machine. That theoretically it might print faster or at least longer for a bigger integral, after doing things that seem to slow down printing now, is also hard to believe if the person you're arguing with has never experienced such a non-linear outcome.
- temac 7y ago
  That sounds like a line by someone who has never seen the disaster that some incompetent people can do. Design is not necessarily something done by a kind of mythical "architect" (whatever that means...); instead, a good programmer simply very often write software that has a good design. And I would say than in most areas, design is effective and required. NT works. 9x is long-dead (and even 9x had tons of design, but there was just a gap too immense on some fundamentals to get anywhere) I would even make the hypothesis that good design is always eventually effective and required, but the period of time after which lack of proper design hits you badly varies, and in some fields it is actually longer than the lifetime of the product...
jboy55 7y ago
I've come to expect that code quality has a strong link to success but in sometimes its inversely proportional. What I mean, is that at the Seed/Series A timeframe, I doubt you will see a strong performing company, with a codebase with high quality. I also the odds are against seeing a tech company with billions in revenue (not worth) have a really poor codebase. I can think of plenty of examples where the desire to 'do it right', has cost a company their marketshare. As much as Netscape vs Microsoft hurt Netscape, the time it took to do NS7 and the quality it shipped with, pushed them back 5-6 years.
0_gravitas 7y ago
Perhaps Extreme Go Horse has some wisdom behind it after all
- jaytaylor 7y ago
  Reference: https://medium.com/@dekaah/22-axioms-of-the-extreme-go-horse-methodology-xgh-9fa739ab55b4 https://medium.com/@dekaah/22-axioms-of-the-extreme-go-horse...
deleted 7y ago
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Jach 7y ago

I periodically think about this line I found on the C2 wiki: "I believe it is time to explicitly state the long held secret of software, we do not need to do design; design is ineffective and costly." --Wayne Mack It's really hard to argue with a money printing machine. That theoretically it might print faster or at least longer for a bigger integral, after doing things that seem to slow down printing now, is also hard to believe if the person you're arguing with has never experienced such a non-linear outcome.

temac 7y ago
That sounds like a line by someone who has never seen the disaster that some incompetent people can do. Design is not necessarily something done by a kind of mythical "architect" (whatever that means...); instead, a good programmer simply very often write software that has a good design. And I would say than in most areas, design is effective and required. NT works. 9x is long-dead (and even 9x had tons of design, but there was just a gap too immense on some fundamentals to get anywhere) I would even make the hypothesis that good design is always eventually effective and required, but the period of time after which lack of proper design hits you badly varies, and in some fields it is actually longer than the lifetime of the product...

jboy55 7y ago

I've come to expect that code quality has a strong link to success but in sometimes its inversely proportional. What I mean, is that at the Seed/Series A timeframe, I doubt you will see a strong performing company, with a codebase with high quality. I also the odds are against seeing a tech company with billions in revenue (not worth) have a really poor codebase. I can think of plenty of examples where the desire to 'do it right', has cost a company their marketshare. As much as Netscape vs Microsoft hurt Netscape, the time it took to do NS7 and the quality it shipped with, pushed them back 5-6 years.

0_gravitas 7y ago

Perhaps Extreme Go Horse has some wisdom behind it after all

jaytaylor 7y ago
Reference: https://medium.com/@dekaah/22-axioms-of-the-extreme-go-horse-methodology-xgh-9fa739ab55b4 https://medium.com/@dekaah/22-axioms-of-the-extreme-go-horse...

deleted 7y ago

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