4 ms·

While it is hard to generalise to an absolute I do largely agree with this sentiment. The amount of times I have advised clients to not use something like Word

While it is hard to generalise to an absolute I do largely agree with this sentiment. The amount of times I have advised clients to not use something like Wordpress to just end up having to use a page builder like Divi hurts my soul. At the end of the day the majority don’t care about things like carrying bloat/legacy code, rigorous testing patterns, using modern tech stacks or typesafe codebases. They simply want you to “make thing go brr”. I can advise until I am blue in the face but the reality is that at least 90% of all my clients want the quickest and cheapest option, resulting in me barely even scratching the surface of my technical abilities. I guess the main thing from a business perspective is that I’m getting paid but, at the same time, ouch, my feels.

abirch 2y ago
I agree with you though I'd state the cheapest upfront option. They tend to cost more in the long run. See Terry Pratchett's boot theory: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
- datadrivenangel 2y ago
  The problem with this theory is that the $50 boot manufacturers sell out to private equity when the founder wants to retire and then the PE firm jacks up the price to $75 and drops the quality below the $10 cardboard boots... so you're out even more money to have wet feet.
bluGill 2y ago
> I can advise until I am blue in the face but the reality is that at least 90% of all my clients want the quickest and cheapest option, resulting in me barely even scratching the surface of my technical abilities. Until more client gets burned with a cheap option that becomes expensive to maintain they won't care. Many clients (across the whole industry, I don't know your clients which could be very different from average) will not get burned as most problems will never get that complex. However most clients have a lot of small problems that are quick to solve meaning that most developers spend their time on the small minority of clients that have complex problems where this matters.
gwd 2y ago
> I can advise until I am blue in the face but the reality is that at least 90% of all my clients want the quickest and cheapest option, resulting in me barely even scratching the surface of my technical abilities. I think part of the problem here is the "market for lemons" thing: The client can't tell the difference between the short-term-cheap-long-term-expensive option and the short-term-expensive-long-term-cheap option, so can't trust that the expensive option will actually save them money in the long term, rather than being a short-term-expensive-long-term-even-more-expensive option. Consider getting quotes to re-plaster your house. One builder quotes you £2000, another £4000. Now, is the first builder giving you a fair price and the second builder charging you extra because you don't know what a fair price is? Or is the first builder a "cowboy" who's going to do a terrible job you're going to regret, and the second a craftsman who's going to do an excellent job you'll be happy you went with? Maybe you happen to know enough, but that's not where I was when we were renovating our house. And consider that the client isn't sure they'll even need a website in 3 years; maybe this new venture will crash and burn well before then. Then we'll be doubly glad they didn't invest in a website with the equivalent of a 10-year guarantee.

abirch 2y ago

I agree with you though I'd state the cheapest upfront option. They tend to cost more in the long run. See Terry Pratchett's boot theory: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

datadrivenangel 2y ago
The problem with this theory is that the $50 boot manufacturers sell out to private equity when the founder wants to retire and then the PE firm jacks up the price to $75 and drops the quality below the $10 cardboard boots... so you're out even more money to have wet feet.

bluGill 2y ago

> I can advise until I am blue in the face but the reality is that at least 90% of all my clients want the quickest and cheapest option, resulting in me barely even scratching the surface of my technical abilities. Until more client gets burned with a cheap option that becomes expensive to maintain they won't care. Many clients (across the whole industry, I don't know your clients which could be very different from average) will not get burned as most problems will never get that complex. However most clients have a lot of small problems that are quick to solve meaning that most developers spend their time on the small minority of clients that have complex problems where this matters.

gwd 2y ago

> I can advise until I am blue in the face but the reality is that at least 90% of all my clients want the quickest and cheapest option, resulting in me barely even scratching the surface of my technical abilities. I think part of the problem here is the "market for lemons" thing: The client can't tell the difference between the short-term-cheap-long-term-expensive option and the short-term-expensive-long-term-cheap option, so can't trust that the expensive option will actually save them money in the long term, rather than being a short-term-expensive-long-term-even-more-expensive option. Consider getting quotes to re-plaster your house. One builder quotes you £2000, another £4000. Now, is the first builder giving you a fair price and the second builder charging you extra because you don't know what a fair price is? Or is the first builder a "cowboy" who's going to do a terrible job you're going to regret, and the second a craftsman who's going to do an excellent job you'll be happy you went with? Maybe you happen to know enough, but that's not where I was when we were renovating our house. And consider that the client isn't sure they'll even need a website in 3 years; maybe this new venture will crash and burn well before then. Then we'll be doubly glad they didn't invest in a website with the equivalent of a 10-year guarantee.