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I see posts pop up with this sentiment often and I'm of two minds: - llms let us build exactly what we want fairly quickly nowadays, or at least a prototype an

I see posts pop up with this sentiment often and I'm of two minds: - llms let us build exactly what we want fairly quickly nowadays, or at least a prototype and - being able to build these features (or separate products) quickly is exactly the trap > It’s the same test I keep applying when picking the right problems to solve — does it make the boat go faster? Who knows this though? It's rarely engineers. Product often has a good sense within their lane. Leadership usually (at good companies) is mostly aligned, with some nuance depending on who's speaking. It's a good sentiment but rarely a single person's decision. As I said, I see these pop up and I'm usually annoyed because what new take could someone bring at this point, but I read them every single time :p

jimkleiber 14d ago
I find myself often trapped (enticed?) by how fast and inexpensive it is to build software nowadays and also to learn new things. Today, was thinking about 1) what do I actually want to build AND maintain? and 2) what do I want to build and maintain that if I didn't do it, someone else probably wouldn't and I'd be really annoyed that it didn't exist in the world? I dunno, just two current questions I thought you might find interesting, not sure if it adds anything new to the discourse, may be a challenge throughout different parts of human history :-D
Retric 14d ago
In theory sure, in practice programmers are often making a large number of such decisions because nobody else in the org is as invested in the specifics.
- bunderbunder 14d ago
  I think it might be even worse than that. In tech you get ahead by gaming the system. The last product I helped launch, I raised concerns about the long term maintenance cost of some unnecessary bells and whistles that early access customers didn’t even like. The product owner actually let their mask slip as directly told me that that wasn’t their problem. They’d have questions to answer if they yanked features that had already been prototyped, and besides, as soon as the product ships they would move on to a new initiative and any ongoing maintenance burden would be some less senior PM’s problem.

jimkleiber 14d ago

I find myself often trapped (enticed?) by how fast and inexpensive it is to build software nowadays and also to learn new things. Today, was thinking about 1) what do I actually want to build AND maintain? and 2) what do I want to build and maintain that if I didn't do it, someone else probably wouldn't and I'd be really annoyed that it didn't exist in the world? I dunno, just two current questions I thought you might find interesting, not sure if it adds anything new to the discourse, may be a challenge throughout different parts of human history :-D

Retric 14d ago

In theory sure, in practice programmers are often making a large number of such decisions because nobody else in the org is as invested in the specifics.

bunderbunder 14d ago
I think it might be even worse than that. In tech you get ahead by gaming the system. The last product I helped launch, I raised concerns about the long term maintenance cost of some unnecessary bells and whistles that early access customers didn’t even like. The product owner actually let their mask slip as directly told me that that wasn’t their problem. They’d have questions to answer if they yanked features that had already been prototyped, and besides, as soon as the product ships they would move on to a new initiative and any ongoing maintenance burden would be some less senior PM’s problem.