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Joel: Five Easy Ways to Fail (in a Software Project)

51 points by luccastera 19y ago

edward 19y ago
Published November 2007 ?
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  He's so productive, he's constantly living in the future...
- alaskamiller 19y ago
  Inc. is a print magazine. This is just an online version of the offline article in a magazine that's printed a month ahead.
edw519 19y ago
One Easy Way to Fail (a Software Project) By doing anything other than the following: Have one to three rock stars and a pretty clear picture of what your audience wants. Code like crazy. Get Version 1.0 out there. Get feedback. Adjust. Repeat until done.
- dshah 19y ago
  Well said. One thing that was glaringly missing from Joel's article was the importance of taking in user feedback and iterating like crazy. I'd go so far as to say that iteration is even more important than fine-grained estimates.
mdemare 19y ago
I love Joel for promoting the idea that working more than 40 hours a week is unproductive, but it does seem contrary to the startup mentality. Would startups be better off if their founders only worked 40 hours a week? I don't think so - working crazy hours is a competitive advantage of startups. Of course, motivation is the big difference, but that's a whole different argument than Joel is making.
- jgrahamc 19y ago
  My experience is that you should _plan_ as if you have 40 hours a week per developer because you are going to be wrong and end up needing more time than you expect. The work after 40 hours is just keeping you on schedule. John.
  - brianr 19y ago
    That seems a bit counterproductive to me--if you know it's going to take more than 40 hours, then why not at least try to make an estimate? If you think that your weeks' work is going to take between 50-70 hours, then budget 70 hours and be glad (or get ahead!) if you finish early. That said, I can't imagine any startup getting far by working 40 hours a week. 80-100 is probably a minimum for a founder... it has to be your focus, not just your 'day job'.
    - olavk 19y ago
      I wonder if anyone have actually done the experiment? When you are doing a startup, you want to work as much as possible, however it might very well be that you would be just as productive if you worked just 40 hours.
      - ph0rque 19y ago
        I'd be very interested in seeing such a study. I think the answer lies in not just how hard you work, but how smart you work; i.e. monitoring your productivity and adjusting various factors (length of time, time of day, etc.) to maximize productivity.
- breck 19y ago
  If you're doing a startup, your life will be the startup. It won't seem like work. But if you hire employees, their life will not be the startup. And it will still be more "work-like" to them than it is to you. So keep them to 40 hours.
- hello_moto 19y ago
  Joel's experience working for Microsoft shaped his mind. It has been MS trademark to start slow but building a _SURE_ thing with good architecture (security is a different story). How old is MS Office now? Compare that with Silicon Valley startup mentality: code like crazy, take shortcuts, release early, flipped your company and let the new hires figured out the mess. (Or you could opt for re-writes like the Reddit people have been doing since their inception).
rontr 19y ago
Clearly, only superstar hackers are skilled enough to add features to FogzBugz.
- euccastro 19y ago
  Even if anyone could add features to FogBugz, not everyone can do it in a way that leaves the codebase clean enough afterwards. It doesn't take much inherent difficulty or complexity for a project to become a total mess in a year or two if left in the hands of incompetent programmers.
  - rontr 19y ago
    "Superstar" is a word that should be reserved for a select few. For example, the hackers who built the Google search engine are superstars. I somehow doubt people of such caliber send their resumes to Fog Creek Software seeking opportunities to maintain aging enterprise bug tracking software. This article reads to me like a thinly veiled recruitment effort. "Work for me and I'll appreciate your contribution, only ask you to work 40 hours a week, and even call you 'superstar'!" I'd rather start a startup.
    - deleted 19y ago
      [deleted]
- henning 19y ago
  Yes, it takes brains to use Wasabi, a language that's probably roughly as powerful as the next release of Visual Basic.
ajkates 19y ago
This is phenomenal advice. In my experience, everything said here seems to be 100% true.
- michaelneale 19y ago
  Even the fine grained estimates? Maybe if you are building software to "spec" (ie someone elses) but for actual software companies, I find it hard to believe that works well that often. Leaves no room for "discoveries". But everything else seems consistent with my experience.
MuddyMo 19y ago
Joel is a rarity: brilliant, successful programmer, entrepreneur and writer. But when writing about how to develop successful software, it tends to be things that would resonate with frustrated enterprise software programmers, like he used to be, or guys like Scoble perhaps. But his theme is similar to PG's, concentrating on making it possible to develop software using programmers with average talent will not result in exceptionally useful software programs.
- michaelneale 19y ago
  >enterprise software programmers, like he used to be Not sure he would qualify as one of those (not even sure what the definition is).
  - MuddyMo 19y ago
    Your right, for brevity's sake, I sacrificed clarity. Perhaps "programmers of software driven by large enterprise marketing departments"
    - michaelneale 19y ago
      Yes that would be better. But then a lot of software falls under that. That which doesn't can also be described in belittling terms. Pick any software you like, mostly it will be trivial (or possible to describe it in trivial terms).
ardit33 19y ago
at FogzBuz developers don't write software... software writes itself!!

51 points by luccastera 19y ago

edward 19y ago

Published November 2007 ?

run4yourlives 19y ago
He's so productive, he's constantly living in the future...
alaskamiller 19y ago
Inc. is a print magazine. This is just an online version of the offline article in a magazine that's printed a month ahead.

edw519 19y ago

One Easy Way to Fail (a Software Project) By doing anything other than the following: Have one to three rock stars and a pretty clear picture of what your audience wants. Code like crazy. Get Version 1.0 out there. Get feedback. Adjust. Repeat until done.

dshah 19y ago
Well said. One thing that was glaringly missing from Joel's article was the importance of taking in user feedback and iterating like crazy. I'd go so far as to say that iteration is even more important than fine-grained estimates.

mdemare 19y ago

I love Joel for promoting the idea that working more than 40 hours a week is unproductive, but it does seem contrary to the startup mentality. Would startups be better off if their founders only worked 40 hours a week? I don't think so - working crazy hours is a competitive advantage of startups. Of course, motivation is the big difference, but that's a whole different argument than Joel is making.

jgrahamc 19y ago
My experience is that you should _plan_ as if you have 40 hours a week per developer because you are going to be wrong and end up needing more time than you expect. The work after 40 hours is just keeping you on schedule. John.
- brianr 19y ago
  That seems a bit counterproductive to me--if you know it's going to take more than 40 hours, then why not at least try to make an estimate? If you think that your weeks' work is going to take between 50-70 hours, then budget 70 hours and be glad (or get ahead!) if you finish early. That said, I can't imagine any startup getting far by working 40 hours a week. 80-100 is probably a minimum for a founder... it has to be your focus, not just your 'day job'.
  - olavk 19y ago
    I wonder if anyone have actually done the experiment? When you are doing a startup, you want to work as much as possible, however it might very well be that you would be just as productive if you worked just 40 hours.
    - ph0rque 19y ago
      I'd be very interested in seeing such a study. I think the answer lies in not just how hard you work, but how smart you work; i.e. monitoring your productivity and adjusting various factors (length of time, time of day, etc.) to maximize productivity.
breck 19y ago
If you're doing a startup, your life will be the startup. It won't seem like work. But if you hire employees, their life will not be the startup. And it will still be more "work-like" to them than it is to you. So keep them to 40 hours.
hello_moto 19y ago
Joel's experience working for Microsoft shaped his mind. It has been MS trademark to start slow but building a _SURE_ thing with good architecture (security is a different story). How old is MS Office now? Compare that with Silicon Valley startup mentality: code like crazy, take shortcuts, release early, flipped your company and let the new hires figured out the mess. (Or you could opt for re-writes like the Reddit people have been doing since their inception).

rontr 19y ago

Clearly, only superstar hackers are skilled enough to add features to FogzBugz.

euccastro 19y ago
Even if anyone could add features to FogBugz, not everyone can do it in a way that leaves the codebase clean enough afterwards. It doesn't take much inherent difficulty or complexity for a project to become a total mess in a year or two if left in the hands of incompetent programmers.
- rontr 19y ago
  "Superstar" is a word that should be reserved for a select few. For example, the hackers who built the Google search engine are superstars. I somehow doubt people of such caliber send their resumes to Fog Creek Software seeking opportunities to maintain aging enterprise bug tracking software. This article reads to me like a thinly veiled recruitment effort. "Work for me and I'll appreciate your contribution, only ask you to work 40 hours a week, and even call you 'superstar'!" I'd rather start a startup.
  - deleted 19y ago
    [deleted]
henning 19y ago
Yes, it takes brains to use Wasabi, a language that's probably roughly as powerful as the next release of Visual Basic.

ajkates 19y ago

This is phenomenal advice. In my experience, everything said here seems to be 100% true.

michaelneale 19y ago
Even the fine grained estimates? Maybe if you are building software to "spec" (ie someone elses) but for actual software companies, I find it hard to believe that works well that often. Leaves no room for "discoveries". But everything else seems consistent with my experience.

MuddyMo 19y ago

Joel is a rarity: brilliant, successful programmer, entrepreneur and writer. But when writing about how to develop successful software, it tends to be things that would resonate with frustrated enterprise software programmers, like he used to be, or guys like Scoble perhaps. But his theme is similar to PG's, concentrating on making it possible to develop software using programmers with average talent will not result in exceptionally useful software programs.

michaelneale 19y ago
>enterprise software programmers, like he used to be Not sure he would qualify as one of those (not even sure what the definition is).
- MuddyMo 19y ago
  Your right, for brevity's sake, I sacrificed clarity. Perhaps "programmers of software driven by large enterprise marketing departments"
  - michaelneale 19y ago
    Yes that would be better. But then a lot of software falls under that. That which doesn't can also be described in belittling terms. Pick any software you like, mostly it will be trivial (or possible to describe it in trivial terms).

ardit33 19y ago

at FogzBuz developers don't write software... software writes itself!!