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Maybe it becomes time to change that. Less innovation and more repetition could help here. I bet you, a company that picks a tool stack and develops several sim

Maybe it becomes time to change that. Less innovation and more repetition could help here. I bet you, a company that picks a tool stack and develops several similar projects over several years will become better at it. We could achieve such a setup by giving software a lifetime upfront and reimplement it after.

pbourke 6y ago
> I bet you, a company that picks a tool stack and develops several similar projects over several years will become better at it. At the end of your several years, your stack will be “outdated,” so you will need to exercise discipline to resist the pressure to keep up with the trends. I like your lifetime idea, though I foresee some hard choices around choosing that timeframe and sticking to your decision to reimplement when the time comes.
- Findeton 6y ago
  Some things don't change that much. Good luck deprecating Postgres.
pornel 6y ago
Physical projects have a construction phase, because they don't have the luxury of zero-cost copying. If you want to construct two identical houses, you still need people to lay bricks twice. If you want two identical websites, you deploy the same files twice. By the nature of software the "construction" part doesn't really apply. If you only replicate already-designed pieces of software, that's more like creating accounts in SaaS or deploying code to new servers.
eecks 6y ago
So then you have a team using java struts, jquery deploying to IBM websphere using SourceSafe as a VCS. Slowly but surely you won't be able to hire new people into the team and your development won't be as efficient as in newer technologies.
konschubert 6y ago
I generally agree that using boring technology is better. It makes projects smaller. But what is left is still discovery/inventive work. That’s because in software, anything repetitive gets factored out into libraries and platforms.

pbourke 6y ago

> I bet you, a company that picks a tool stack and develops several similar projects over several years will become better at it. At the end of your several years, your stack will be “outdated,” so you will need to exercise discipline to resist the pressure to keep up with the trends. I like your lifetime idea, though I foresee some hard choices around choosing that timeframe and sticking to your decision to reimplement when the time comes.

Findeton 6y ago
Some things don't change that much. Good luck deprecating Postgres.

pornel 6y ago

Physical projects have a construction phase, because they don't have the luxury of zero-cost copying. If you want to construct two identical houses, you still need people to lay bricks twice. If you want two identical websites, you deploy the same files twice. By the nature of software the "construction" part doesn't really apply. If you only replicate already-designed pieces of software, that's more like creating accounts in SaaS or deploying code to new servers.

eecks 6y ago

So then you have a team using java struts, jquery deploying to IBM websphere using SourceSafe as a VCS. Slowly but surely you won't be able to hire new people into the team and your development won't be as efficient as in newer technologies.

konschubert 6y ago

I generally agree that using boring technology is better. It makes projects smaller. But what is left is still discovery/inventive work. That’s because in software, anything repetitive gets factored out into libraries and platforms.