4 ms·
“an app that any competent programmer could probably whip up in a day or two” You must tread very, very carefully when using those words. Being programmers doe
by evincarofautumn 14y ago
“an app that any competent programmer could probably whip up in a day or two”
You must tread very, very carefully when using those words. Being programmers does not magically admit us to a complete understanding of every detail of a piece of software. If you’ve ever delivered a product, you should know that what the user sees is only a fraction of the whole—even if the user happens to be a competent programmer. And if you consider yourself such a programmer, why not try replicating their software from scratch, if it will really only take a day or two?
- calinet6 14y agoI completely agree, obviously there are many complications and other concerns that could make it a much more difficult task. I envision most of the difficulty that exceptional.io has encountered has been related to scalability. If I wanted a small, simple, self-hosted application with this functionality, it will probably be simpler. I'm not guaranteeing this, but I'm making a good estimate based on my experience creating similar web apps and utilities throughout my career—this ain't no blind shot in the dark guess. You're right, being programmers does not make us magically able to understand details of software. But being good software engineers does involve a lot of exactly that skill. They are separate and distinct skills, but most great programmers I know are also great software engineers, and also great estimaters of project complexity. In my experience, I am as well (in fact I am generally better at estimating project architecture, complexity and time than I am at programming itself). This is where my response comes from—not simply being a programmer. Apologies for the confusion.