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Most software projects use the sweatshop method. (We're late, throw more people and more hours at it.) And most software projects fail. Although that isn't an

Most software projects use the sweatshop method. (We're late, throw more people and more hours at it.) And most software projects fail. Although that isn't any more definitive than anything else, it does give DHH's view some weight, and so far my experience in the industry backs it up.

tptacek 18y ago
The Feedburner guys were a consultancy --- BurningDoor --- since 1995. Nineteen Ninety Five. Our ISP used to host them. They had awesome offices. You know what? I'll take Dick Costello's experience over the idealized YC moonshot business plan any day of the week. Come to think of it: BurningDoor, 37Signals; maybe this is just a Chicago thing.
- pchristensen 18y ago
  Don't forget Adrian Holovaty (Django, Everyblock) and Aza Raskin (Humanized, Mozilla Labs). Also from Chicago.
  - tptacek 18y ago
    Everyblock took funding and Humanized seems to have folded, but I'm happy to recognize more hometown heroes. =)
    - pchristensen 18y ago
      EveryBlock's funding was from a journalism grant, and rather than have some of the destructive conditions that VC money has, it had a condition that the code they produce must be publicly available at the end of the grant. While I'm name dropping, Threadless is another Chicago company.
davidw 18y ago
We weren't talking about most software projects though, we were talking about most startups. At least I was, and so was the original article.
- Tamerlin 18y ago
  I was also. I've worked for several startups, and indeed their first mistake was to develop software in crunch mode, and their second was to throw more people at it because it was late. In every case, the result was software that required a huge amount of effort to do anything with (about as agile as a 16-wheeler with no gas in the tank and 12 flat tires), morale that tailed off as the burnout increased, and failure. Most of those companies WILL fail, because their product will be poor, even if it's a good idea. Revolution health is a good example; they started out with a good idea and executed badly... now they're going through rounds of layoffs, making very little money, and Google is accomplishing what they've failed to (e.g. online health records).

tptacek 18y ago

The Feedburner guys were a consultancy --- BurningDoor --- since 1995. Nineteen Ninety Five. Our ISP used to host them. They had awesome offices. You know what? I'll take Dick Costello's experience over the idealized YC moonshot business plan any day of the week. Come to think of it: BurningDoor, 37Signals; maybe this is just a Chicago thing.

pchristensen 18y ago
Don't forget Adrian Holovaty (Django, Everyblock) and Aza Raskin (Humanized, Mozilla Labs). Also from Chicago.
- tptacek 18y ago
  Everyblock took funding and Humanized seems to have folded, but I'm happy to recognize more hometown heroes. =)
  - pchristensen 18y ago
    EveryBlock's funding was from a journalism grant, and rather than have some of the destructive conditions that VC money has, it had a condition that the code they produce must be publicly available at the end of the grant. While I'm name dropping, Threadless is another Chicago company.

davidw 18y ago

We weren't talking about most software projects though, we were talking about most startups. At least I was, and so was the original article.

Tamerlin 18y ago
I was also. I've worked for several startups, and indeed their first mistake was to develop software in crunch mode, and their second was to throw more people at it because it was late. In every case, the result was software that required a huge amount of effort to do anything with (about as agile as a 16-wheeler with no gas in the tank and 12 flat tires), morale that tailed off as the burnout increased, and failure. Most of those companies WILL fail, because their product will be poor, even if it's a good idea. Revolution health is a good example; they started out with a good idea and executed badly... now they're going through rounds of layoffs, making very little money, and Google is accomplishing what they've failed to (e.g. online health records).