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The other half of "Artists Ship"

paulgraham.com

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Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#51

Post by tdavis »

bootload wrote: post #41

"... Steve Jobs's famous maxim "artists ship" works both ways. Artists aren't merely capable of shipping. They insist on it. So if you don't let people ship, you won't have any artists ..." Steve Yegge has had the unenviable luck of working on 3 products all of which have not shipped (cited as business reasons) yet he still works for Google ~ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/10/podcast-25/ So it seems there is some…

I spent 3 months at the end of recent deployment furiously developing an (arguably) game-changing app for the Army's secret intranet. I knew in advance it wouldn't actually get deployed, despite everyone up to the Task Force Commander loving it and touting its importance. The day came when it was "done" (of course I had become attached and there were a million things I wanted to add) and ready to be deployed... then the red tape tied it up until it was time for us to go. As is generally the case, our replacements weren't planning to do things our way (the country has gotten much worse since we left, imagine that) so the project was basically sunk.

I worked on it because I love programming and trying new things. Everything I was doing at the time was new to me so it was fun, engaging, and a learning experience. Plus, it beat the hell out of anything else I could have been doing in that wasteland ;)

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#52

Post by [deleted] »

lutorm wrote: post #44
allyt wrote: post #38

I think this can be generalized to say that start-ups have a different cost-benefit analysis - one where losses are capped at the (relatively small) value of the company. On the other hand, large companies have to be risk-averse because the worst-case is several magnitudes worse. When you're working at ConEd or AIG, the "tiny probability/worst-case-loss" factors start to matter, because "worst-case" can include inves…

Funny that some of those large companies you mention didn't seem to get the memo about being risk-averse... ;-)

[deleted]

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#53

Post by trapper »

tdavis wrote: post #50

Having never had a "normal" job per se (okay, I bagged groceries for a year when I was younger), I still find it hard to believe that it can take two weeks just to get something deployed. Maybe one day I'll finally truly believe all the stories I've heard -- two-week deployments, meetings about future meetings, etc. For now, some part of me still believes it's simply implausible and everyone is engaging in hyperbole.…

It's not abnormal. In rails I have deployed to a customer in 12 hours, starting from scratch. I was using my own framework though. In gwt, I have done this in ~24 hours. These weren't simple apps either, not just scaffolding, but had complex user interfaces.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#54

Post by arjungmenon »

pg wrote: post #49
rokhayakebe wrote: post #30

Programmers are unlike many types of workers in that the best ones actually prefer to work hard. This doesn't seem to be the case in most types of work. When I worked in fast food, we didn't prefer the busy times. And when I used to mow lawns, I definitely didn't prefer it when the grass was long after a week of rain. Programmers, though, like it better when they write more code. Or more precisely, when they release…

Writer are like hackers, yes. But the reason most salesmen like to work hard is that they're paid on commission. That's very different.

Good point.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#55

Post by tdavis »

trapper wrote: post #53
tdavis wrote: post #50

Having never had a "normal" job per se (okay, I bagged groceries for a year when I was younger), I still find it hard to believe that it can take two weeks just to get something deployed. Maybe one day I'll finally truly believe all the stories I've heard -- two-week deployments, meetings about future meetings, etc. For now, some part of me still believes it's simply implausible and everyone is engaging in hyperbole.…

It's not abnormal. In rails I have deployed to a customer in 12 hours, starting from scratch. I was using my own framework though. In gwt, I have done this in ~24 hours. These weren't simple apps either, not just scaffolding, but had complex user interfaces.

I wasn't referring to task difficulty, just the extreme time delay between when something is ready and when it is put into production.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#56

Post by tomsaffell »

pg wrote: post #49
rokhayakebe wrote: post #30

Programmers are unlike many types of workers in that the best ones actually prefer to work hard. This doesn't seem to be the case in most types of work. When I worked in fast food, we didn't prefer the busy times. And when I used to mow lawns, I definitely didn't prefer it when the grass was long after a week of rain. Programmers, though, like it better when they write more code. Or more precisely, when they release…

Writer are like hackers, yes. But the reason most salesmen like to work hard is that they're paid on commission. That's very different.

I suspect that what is really going on here is that workers who love their job actually prefer to work hard AND good programmers love their job. So it is probably true that good programmers actually prefer to work hard, but that is not the whole truth...

Also, since most workers don't love their job, it is probably also true that good programmers are unlike many workers. To say that programmers are unlike many TYPES OF workers we'd have to believe that a higher proportion of programmers love their job than do workers in other types of work. From what I have seen on HN (albeit sample biased) I'd say that is true.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#58

Post by rokhayakebe »

pg wrote: post #49
rokhayakebe wrote: post #30

Programmers are unlike many types of workers in that the best ones actually prefer to work hard. This doesn't seem to be the case in most types of work. When I worked in fast food, we didn't prefer the busy times. And when I used to mow lawns, I definitely didn't prefer it when the grass was long after a week of rain. Programmers, though, like it better when they write more code. Or more precisely, when they release…

Writer are like hackers, yes. But the reason most salesmen like to work hard is that they're paid on commission. That's very different.

Touche

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#59

Post by trapper »

tdavis wrote: post #55
trapper wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not abnormal. In rails I have deployed to a customer in 12 hours, starting from scratch. I was using my own framework though. In gwt, I have done this in ~24 hours. These weren't simple apps either, not just scaffolding, but had complex user interfaces.

I wasn't referring to task difficulty, just the extreme time delay between when something is ready and when it is put into production.

I was referring to development & production deployments in both examples.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#60

Post by pg »

allyt wrote: post #38

I think this can be generalized to say that start-ups have a different cost-benefit analysis - one where losses are capped at the (relatively small) value of the company. On the other hand, large companies have to be risk-averse because the worst-case is several magnitudes worse. When you're working at ConEd or AIG, the "tiny probability/worst-case-loss" factors start to matter, because "worst-case" can include inves…

I don't think greater risk accounts for all the slowness of big companies. Some (probably most) of it is simply breakage caused by their large size.
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