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Kudos, if you actually did that rewrite. ...if only I had a cent for every time I've had this conversation with an engineering manager: Manager: "Just live wi
by gyulai 4y ago
Kudos, if you actually did that rewrite.
...if only I had a cent for every time I've had this conversation with an engineering manager: Manager: "Just live with the mess for now. We'll fix it later when we have money." Later: "Can we fix the mess now?" Manager: "No. We're making too much money now. Blah, blah, blah.
Opportunity cost."
- wpietri 4y agoWe really did throw it away. And when I'm an engineering manager, this is my big test for product managers. Initially I give them a low-limit credit card for technical debt. If they pay it off when they promise, I give them a bigger limit. If not, I take the credit card away and we keep a consistently low level of technical debt.
- wpietri 4y agoAnd I should add that more startup and new-product teams should be bold about throwing away code. Startups need to be optimized for learning. Each release should tell you something about your users, your market, your ideas. But doing that means that some of the code will have been written before you know what you're doing. That code either needs to be refactored or reverted. The latter feels scarier but is often cheaper.
- gyulai 4y agoCouldn't agree more.