5 ms·

The idea of prototyping to uncover 'unknown unknowns' resonates with me, it's like a reconnaissance mission before the actual project. This could indeed save a

The idea of prototyping to uncover 'unknown unknowns' resonates with me, it's like a reconnaissance mission before the actual project. This could indeed save a lot of time and effort in the long run...

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Just never let management see the prototype or they'll consider it done and tell you to move on to something else.
- shortcake27 3y ago
  In my experience, this is what actually happens. A developer makes a low-quality, low-effort prototype under the assumption it won’t ship. Someone sees it. It gets shipped. Everyone loses.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    Sabotage your prototypes then. Have it reset its state every 5 minutes or deliberately leak memory.
    - gjvc 3y ago
      Sneaky move.... but then, in the eyes of some people, you might well appear not competent to put together a working system, so make sure you know your audience.
    - sodapopcan 3y ago
      Ya, this basically. It helps if you have tests because when prototyping, you can write things in a way which break tests and ideally break other features. It works enough that you can validate the one idea. That way it will never pass CI.
    - hyperthesis 3y ago
      They are cunning. You cannot sabotage it enough to fool them.
vishnugupta 3y ago
Reconnaissance mission is a great analogy. I think of it as scouting from the Age of Empires. Besides discovering unknown-unknowns it also helps in conveying design/idea to rest of the team.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Another war analogy was the Byzantine defense. Their policy was to avoid decisive, large-scale battles where a lot can go wrong at once. If an enemy army is incurring, first try to weaken or deter it with lighter forces that also gather intel. If they can't stop the threat, form and advance a larger army with a better-planned supply chain to stop it deeper in the territory. Which actually doesn't work so well in AoE. The game doesn't have a concept of army supplies, so you usually just want a huge unstoppable army you can send anywhere.
hyperthesis 3y ago
"tracer bullet" that shoots through all key parts of the system (agile terminology, I think).

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

Just never let management see the prototype or they'll consider it done and tell you to move on to something else.

shortcake27 3y ago
In my experience, this is what actually happens. A developer makes a low-quality, low-effort prototype under the assumption it won’t ship. Someone sees it. It gets shipped. Everyone loses.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  Sabotage your prototypes then. Have it reset its state every 5 minutes or deliberately leak memory.
  - gjvc 3y ago
    Sneaky move.... but then, in the eyes of some people, you might well appear not competent to put together a working system, so make sure you know your audience.
  - sodapopcan 3y ago
    Ya, this basically. It helps if you have tests because when prototyping, you can write things in a way which break tests and ideally break other features. It works enough that you can validate the one idea. That way it will never pass CI.
  - hyperthesis 3y ago
    They are cunning. You cannot sabotage it enough to fool them.

vishnugupta 3y ago

Reconnaissance mission is a great analogy. I think of it as scouting from the Age of Empires. Besides discovering unknown-unknowns it also helps in conveying design/idea to rest of the team.

hot_gril 3y ago
Another war analogy was the Byzantine defense. Their policy was to avoid decisive, large-scale battles where a lot can go wrong at once. If an enemy army is incurring, first try to weaken or deter it with lighter forces that also gather intel. If they can't stop the threat, form and advance a larger army with a better-planned supply chain to stop it deeper in the territory. Which actually doesn't work so well in AoE. The game doesn't have a concept of army supplies, so you usually just want a huge unstoppable army you can send anywhere.

hyperthesis 3y ago

"tracer bullet" that shoots through all key parts of the system (agile terminology, I think).