4 ms·
All of those are absolutely true, and many of them reduce to one thing - didn't have a frickin' clue what the code was supposed to do I remember reading t
by michael_dorfman 15y ago
All of those are absolutely true, and many of them reduce to one thing
- didn't have a frickin' clue what the code was supposed to do
I remember reading the old cartoon (and it was already old when I saw it 25 years ago) of the manager saying "You guys start writing code, I'll go find out what they want", and swearing I would never be that kind of manager only to find, all those years later, that many of my programmers had already internalized the notion and routinely sat down to write code without having a clear idea of what the block of code was supposed to accomplish.
- jodrellblank 15y agoYou say that on a site where the ethos is "start building a company and product now, we'll figure out what it should do later" - because that's a way that works.
- michael_dorfman 15y agoI think the ethos here is clearly different than you suggest. Trying to build a product without having an idea what it should do is not a way that works. Being open to refining your idea or pivoting as you go is a horse of a different color. But trying to write code without a clear purpose in mind is the equivalent of monkeys banging away at typewriters, to return to our "writing" metaphor.
- pkandathil 15y ago37 Signals in their book rework put it really well. You have a business model from day 1. Not everyone is Facebook and Twitter so having a concept of a business model is very important. So yes, having a clear vision of your product is necessary. That vision can change while you are building but you still need to have a starting point.