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Companies can sacrifice every thing for "time to market" - optimization, maintainability, security and safety even - but underestimate the costs of doing that.

Companies can sacrifice every thing for "time to market" - optimization, maintainability, security and safety even - but underestimate the costs of doing that. It is actually more a marketing choice than an economic choice. One can be skeptical about the implied statement and leadership/management knows what it is doing beyond delivering at the (arbitrarily) set time. One definition of Quality is to satisfy a need entirely at the lowest cost in the shortest time, but more often that not, the last term gets 90% of the attention.

wiseowise 1y ago
> but underestimate the costs of doing that Do they? I’ve been fighting against the tide for years until I understood that all of quality this and quality that doesn’t matter. Sure, it sucks to be on the receiving end of buggy software, but this where you vote with your money. At work? Finish the task with least amount of resources and move on.
- hinkley 1y ago
  It’s about momentum. Once you lose it the wheels come off. And at first that’s shipping product, but later on it’s adding new features to the minefield you’ve laid. Until you start clearing the mines your velocity continues to drop.
  - wiseowise 1y ago
    > Until you start clearing the mines your velocity continues to drop. I've been doing this for decades, it's never a problem. Either velocity tanks in which case there's a short period where company invests into improving it, or people leave.
    - rizzom5000 1y ago
      I've seen projects that failed, or were killed, likely at least in part due to a culture that encouraged poor quality and tech debt. This is preventable, and for no additional up-front engineering effort or time investment.
      - hinkley 1y ago
        One of my managers was fond of the phrase, “a project is done when nobody is willing to work on it anymore.” That can be because of a number of reasons, including that the money is gone, or it sucks your will to live.
      - astrobe_ 1y ago
        Yes, parent says "people leave" as if it is not a problem in itself; you lose the time it takes to train these people, and they probably take some knowledge about the products with them. Or maybe we are actually talking about commodity developers? But I'm curious about how one prevents this dysfunctional culture.
        hinkley 1y ago
        At my last job the people motivated to fix the clusterfuck were the first to leave. Except me because I’m a masochist apparently.
        john_the_writer 1y ago
        Yep.. They/we get miffed, and twisted, stalled. Then they get dispassionate, and leave.
        wiseowise 1y ago
        We’re talking about different scales. At a big company “you” don’t lose anything. You only lose if you’re a fool trying to fix dysfunctional culture when you’re not even close to C level.
        scrubs 1y ago
        You said that right! Absolutely. It's one thing to fix a mess in a culture that cares. It's darn near impossible to fix it if the culture around is hostile, indifferent, or any of the other 82 million other reasons organizations come up with to not care. In that situation you can end up being the pariah despite good intentions engineering and otherwise like satisfied customers.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- anonzzzies 1y ago
  > Finish the task with least amount of resources and move on which is now claude code...
- esafak 1y ago
  At work the buyer is not the user, so be sure to hound the buyer when he saddles you with crap.
hinkley 1y ago
They underestimate how long it takes to turn the boat when lowering operational costs becomes the best avenue to improving revenue. I think it’s like switching CEOs when the company goes out of startup mode into grownup company. What got you here won’t keep you here.
akst 1y ago
> Companies can sacrifice every thing for "time to market" - optimization, maintainability, security and safety even - but underestimate the costs of doing that If you're working at a company who disregards safety and security good luck getting them to care about clean code and efficiency.

wiseowise 1y ago

> but underestimate the costs of doing that Do they? I’ve been fighting against the tide for years until I understood that all of quality this and quality that doesn’t matter. Sure, it sucks to be on the receiving end of buggy software, but this where you vote with your money. At work? Finish the task with least amount of resources and move on.

hinkley 1y ago
It’s about momentum. Once you lose it the wheels come off. And at first that’s shipping product, but later on it’s adding new features to the minefield you’ve laid. Until you start clearing the mines your velocity continues to drop.
- wiseowise 1y ago
  > Until you start clearing the mines your velocity continues to drop. I've been doing this for decades, it's never a problem. Either velocity tanks in which case there's a short period where company invests into improving it, or people leave.
  - rizzom5000 1y ago
    I've seen projects that failed, or were killed, likely at least in part due to a culture that encouraged poor quality and tech debt. This is preventable, and for no additional up-front engineering effort or time investment.
    - hinkley 1y ago
      One of my managers was fond of the phrase, “a project is done when nobody is willing to work on it anymore.” That can be because of a number of reasons, including that the money is gone, or it sucks your will to live.
    - astrobe_ 1y ago
      Yes, parent says "people leave" as if it is not a problem in itself; you lose the time it takes to train these people, and they probably take some knowledge about the products with them. Or maybe we are actually talking about commodity developers? But I'm curious about how one prevents this dysfunctional culture.
      - hinkley 1y ago
        At my last job the people motivated to fix the clusterfuck were the first to leave. Except me because I’m a masochist apparently.
        john_the_writer 1y ago
        Yep.. They/we get miffed, and twisted, stalled. Then they get dispassionate, and leave.
      - wiseowise 1y ago
        We’re talking about different scales. At a big company “you” don’t lose anything. You only lose if you’re a fool trying to fix dysfunctional culture when you’re not even close to C level.
        scrubs 1y ago
        You said that right! Absolutely. It's one thing to fix a mess in a culture that cares. It's darn near impossible to fix it if the culture around is hostile, indifferent, or any of the other 82 million other reasons organizations come up with to not care. In that situation you can end up being the pariah despite good intentions engineering and otherwise like satisfied customers.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
anonzzzies 1y ago
> Finish the task with least amount of resources and move on which is now claude code...
esafak 1y ago
At work the buyer is not the user, so be sure to hound the buyer when he saddles you with crap.

hinkley 1y ago

They underestimate how long it takes to turn the boat when lowering operational costs becomes the best avenue to improving revenue. I think it’s like switching CEOs when the company goes out of startup mode into grownup company. What got you here won’t keep you here.

akst 1y ago

> Companies can sacrifice every thing for "time to market" - optimization, maintainability, security and safety even - but underestimate the costs of doing that If you're working at a company who disregards safety and security good luck getting them to care about clean code and efficiency.