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I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions in our industry. Software developers, REALLLY, need to get over ourselves. Bad development practices and bad

I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions in our industry. Software developers, REALLLY, need to get over ourselves. Bad development practices and bad coding, has not (as far as I have ever heard) killed any company. I would like to be shown at least one example, where bad software killed the software company ? For crying out loud, Windows was 'bad' until Win 2000+. Don't forget WinME. The first version of Netscape was horrible. Internet Explorer was absolutely, horrendous. Norton Anti-virus became more horrible with every release until they slimmed it down recently. I was recently reading questions asked by Larry Page on Java's forums, and it is CLEAR that he was NOT an 'A-grade' Java programmer. Twitter's early versions kept dying - under what could conceivably be argued is bad software development - yet they still thrive today. I am pretty sure that the first versions of Facebook sucked ass too. Developers get better over time...you know how ? By sucking, making mistakes, learning and improving. Not by being awesome all the time. So we, as developers, need to get over ourselves and realize that we are just one tool in the tool belt for company success. You can build the best product on the planet, if you have no sales (assuming that the market is rational) and no VC financing you are dead. Finito. Kaput. Gone. Kapish ? Edit: Sorry if this comes off as belligerent, I am just tired of the stereotypes. If developers don't start off as bad, how do they become good ? Plus, having the most efficient sorting algorithm will not let one software company win over the other - unless you are selling sorting algorithms, of course.

mnutt 15y ago
Bad development practices can and do kill companies, although in those cases the cause of death is usually considered "failed to innovate" or something similar. Accumulate enough technical debt and you'll be unable to move very quickly for fear of breaking things. After code starts breaking expect to add processes on top of processes, which may stop the breakage but only slow things down even further. That's not to say that bad programming is the only reason companies fail to innovate, but if the code gets bad enough things will show down and newer competitors will overtake you.
- marcamillion 15y ago
  As I asked in my response, Please provide examples. Bad coding does not mean 'failed to innovate'. Digg.com innovated with the Digg button, but according to Kevin they had a bunch of 'bad coders' doing 'bad coding'.
  - mnutt 15y ago
    Bad coding does not mean "failed to innovate" but bad coding will certainly lead to failure to innovate. There are many, many companies that fall into that category but if you want a direct example of bad coding -> failure then look at Friendster: "But the board also lost sight of the task at hand, according to Kent Lindstrom, an early investor in Friendster and one of its first employees. As Friendster became more popular, its overwhelmed Web site became slower. Things would become so bad that a Friendster Web page took as long as 40 seconds to download. Yet, from where Mr. Lindstrom sat, technical difficulties proved too pedestrian for a board of this pedigree." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/business/yourmoney/15friend.html?pagewanted=2 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/business/yourmoney/15frien... There is hardly ever a single reason why a company fails, but site performance and the inability/unwillingness to address it played a large part in Friendster's decline.
    - marcamillion 15y ago
      We really are arguing in circles here, because there could be many reasons for the slowness at Friendster. Didn't have to be bad coding. It could have been insufficient hardware. No matter how good the developers were, if their hardware can only manage X number of concurrent users with max optimizations, when growth brought in X^2, no amount of 'good development' would solve that issue. However, I do agree with your point that there isn't just one thing that kills a company. That was my original point. The TC article made it sound as if 'bad coders' killed companies. That is very delusional and it flatters developers too much. They are important, but not THAT important. That's my point. Please don't flame me, as a developer myself, I am fully aware of where my expertise (and value-add) stops.
lurker19 15y ago
Capisce.

mnutt 15y ago

Bad development practices can and do kill companies, although in those cases the cause of death is usually considered "failed to innovate" or something similar. Accumulate enough technical debt and you'll be unable to move very quickly for fear of breaking things. After code starts breaking expect to add processes on top of processes, which may stop the breakage but only slow things down even further. That's not to say that bad programming is the only reason companies fail to innovate, but if the code gets bad enough things will show down and newer competitors will overtake you.

marcamillion 15y ago
As I asked in my response, Please provide examples. Bad coding does not mean 'failed to innovate'. Digg.com innovated with the Digg button, but according to Kevin they had a bunch of 'bad coders' doing 'bad coding'.
- mnutt 15y ago
  Bad coding does not mean "failed to innovate" but bad coding will certainly lead to failure to innovate. There are many, many companies that fall into that category but if you want a direct example of bad coding -> failure then look at Friendster: "But the board also lost sight of the task at hand, according to Kent Lindstrom, an early investor in Friendster and one of its first employees. As Friendster became more popular, its overwhelmed Web site became slower. Things would become so bad that a Friendster Web page took as long as 40 seconds to download. Yet, from where Mr. Lindstrom sat, technical difficulties proved too pedestrian for a board of this pedigree." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/business/yourmoney/15friend.html?pagewanted=2 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/business/yourmoney/15frien... There is hardly ever a single reason why a company fails, but site performance and the inability/unwillingness to address it played a large part in Friendster's decline.
  - marcamillion 15y ago
    We really are arguing in circles here, because there could be many reasons for the slowness at Friendster. Didn't have to be bad coding. It could have been insufficient hardware. No matter how good the developers were, if their hardware can only manage X number of concurrent users with max optimizations, when growth brought in X^2, no amount of 'good development' would solve that issue. However, I do agree with your point that there isn't just one thing that kills a company. That was my original point. The TC article made it sound as if 'bad coders' killed companies. That is very delusional and it flatters developers too much. They are important, but not THAT important. That's my point. Please don't flame me, as a developer myself, I am fully aware of where my expertise (and value-add) stops.

lurker19 15y ago

Capisce.