5 ms·
I kept hearing the same cliche over and over in my head as I read this: Shipping code wins
by bchjam 15y ago
I kept hearing the same cliche over and over in my head as I read this:
Shipping code wins
- shadowfox 15y agoMaybe I am confused. What do you mean by that?
- bchjam 15y agoThere seemed to be an emphasis on remembering facts and proving intellectualism by getting degrees rather than using knowledge to accomplish things. You obviously have to know enough to get it done but without trying to actually do it you'll never have a good idea of what enough is. It was also a reminder to myself that I needed to get back to coding rather than indulging in this intellectual tangent over the state of geek intellectualism.
- pnathan 15y agoAnd pair that with the well-known facts that: * quality takes time * the amount of low-quality "ship it in a hurry" code is immense. And we quickly see that "shipping code wins" is the root cause of our crap!
- bchjam 15y agoI'm all for higher standards of what counts as shippable. However, years spent perfecting the wrong idea will probably yield something of questionable value at best. I don't know what the right balance is but I never got closer to knowing by just thinking about it without some sort of feedback loop.
- danparsonson 15y agoBe glad people don't take that attitude when building aircraft or bridges or medical scanners ;-)
- bchjam 15y agoI was always exposed to the Wright brothers as a successful example of the fail fast approach. Obviously the risk factors of "just shipping" are different to most software but my point is that they didn't get to success just by thinking about it. They built things that they expected to fail so that they could learn from them and iteratively made their way to flight.
- JoachimSchipper 15y agoIteration and hard work did help the Wright brothers, but so did building a wind tunnel and their knowledge of aerodynamics. "Just do it" is not enough.
- bchjam 15y agoAgreed. It takes a balance of both (and to be honest it took me a long time to learn to appreciate the practical side). I suppose the one-liner was too vague to fully convey my meaning but it really was playing in my mind's ear.