The saddest "Just Ship It" story ever (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: The saddest "Just Ship It" story ever (2020)

#41

Post by andrewstuart » Thu, Jul 04, 2024, 5:56 AM UTC

I've got three separate applications all "close to finished" and I've been working on them for years (along with many other things).

Just as I'm getting real close to being finished enough to release - something changes - life changes - or some other thing changes - or I don't believe in the product any more - then I do believe in the product again - then blah blah blah. Always "legitimate" reasons - outcome always the same - haven't shipped anything in years except a bunch of open source projects.

Re: The saddest "Just Ship It" story ever (2020)

#42

Post by pdonis » Thu, Jul 04, 2024, 5:57 AM UTC

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #39

pdonis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you have a stake in the company, it is NOT your job to make sure the company is the most profitable it can be. Maybe. But... > Your job is to create great software. No. Your job is to do what the company pays you for. The company is not paying you to create great software. It's paying you to solve some kind of business problem or provide some kind of business service. Some of those problems or services do in…

> No. Your job is to do what the company pays you for. The company is not paying you to create great software. It's paying you to solve some kind of business problem or provide some kind of business service. The company pays me because of my knowledge and expertise, that is needed to create and maintain the porduct as best as possible. If I am just a yes man, the company isn't getting what they paid for. If I honestl…

> The company pays me because of my knowledge and expertise, that is needed to create and maintain the porduct as best as possible.

Yes, but that does not always mean writing great software. Sometimes it means writing mediocre software because that's all that's needed. Sometimes it might mean writing no software at all because software isn't the best way to solve a particular problem.

You recognize this because you say there is a quality/time spectrum, and the company wants you to use your expertise to help find the optimal point on that spectrum for a particular need. But "write great software" implies that there is no such spectrum--everything you do is always at the extreme high end. You are agreeing with me that that's not the case.

Re: The saddest "Just Ship It" story ever (2020)

#43

Post by light_triad » Thu, Jul 04, 2024, 6:00 AM UTC

silisili wrote: post #18

ggeorgovassilis wrote: post #6

> so I started getting suspicious if someone actually shared the video of my app with these people because they were solving literally the same problem I once met a guy who had a good idea about an app, something that became fairly mainstream two years later. He asked me to code the app for free and we'd share revenues. When asked what his contribution would be, he offered to "run" the company and otherwise his 50% w…

As someone extremely logic and programming oriented, I -wish- I'd met someone like that. I'm just not an idea guy, apparently. If the idea was truly good so much so you believed in it, it was a heck of an offer tbh.

The problem with this setup is that having the idea is only the starting point. You will need to iterate, talk to customers, improve the solution for years while you learn more about the market.

Even if the idea is truly good all the value is in the execution and acting on non obvious information from your customers. Anyone who isn’t committed to this long and uncertain process probably shouldn’t be a co-founder.

Re: The saddest "Just Ship It" story ever (2020)

#44

Post by willvarfar » Thu, Jul 04, 2024, 6:01 AM UTC

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #39

pdonis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you have a stake in the company, it is NOT your job to make sure the company is the most profitable it can be. Maybe. But... > Your job is to create great software. No. Your job is to do what the company pays you for. The company is not paying you to create great software. It's paying you to solve some kind of business problem or provide some kind of business service. Some of those problems or services do in…

> No. Your job is to do what the company pays you for. The company is not paying you to create great software. It's paying you to solve some kind of business problem or provide some kind of business service. The company pays me because of my knowledge and expertise, that is needed to create and maintain the porduct as best as possible. If I am just a yes man, the company isn't getting what they paid for. If I honestl…

Should we not find out what the company are paying you for? They might be surprised that you think they hired to you do to be a no-man and believe a course correction is in order? :)

Re: The saddest "Just Ship It" story ever (2020)

#45

Post by pm90 » Thu, Jul 04, 2024, 6:02 AM UTC

raincole wrote: post #28

Perhaps it's just me, but I can't stand the "I'm trying so hard to be funny" writing style.

Agreed. It’s very exhausting to read. A few well timed digs are ok but you need to not overdo it.

Re: The saddest "Just Ship It" story ever (2020)

#46

Post by exe34 » Thu, Jul 04, 2024, 6:05 AM UTC

Huggernaut wrote: post #32

manmal wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing you‘re a CTO, I‘m a bit concerned for your staff (if any) if your first reflex is blaming the developer for not trusting their boss.

I don't see any blame assigned in the previous comment.

no it was more passive aggressive - suggesting there was blame but not actually coming out and assigning it.

Re: The saddest "Just Ship It" story ever (2020)

#47

Post by jamesfinlayson » Thu, Jul 04, 2024, 6:06 AM UTC

jascha_eng wrote: post #24

38 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pull Request-like Review/Approval flow for database queries Terrible description IMO. a query should not need approval. Should use mutation or edit or update or modification. Even if query is technically correct it just sounds wrong and confusing.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Maybe statement instead of query would be more accurate but I think people get the gist of it just fine. Also, I disagree a manual query like: "select * from credit_cards;" should probably go through an approval flow if you have a table like that in your prod env.

A guy I used to work with said he worked for a company where all queries had to get approved by one of two full time DBAs - apparently with good reason as someone tried to modify a query that would have joined with half the rows in some gigantic table.

Re: The saddest "Just Ship It" story ever (2020)

#48

Post by edg5000 » Thu, Jul 04, 2024, 6:08 AM UTC

I found that becoming an actual user of your own system changes the perspective entirely. I had this thing that I was making for myself, and it was not ready, not usable at all, or so I thought.

After giving up on the project I decided to try and actually started using it as if I was a user. I realised that as users, we are used to countless minor issues, and we automatically find ways around that. When you are the creator of something, you sometimes forget that a lot of sloppyness will not be a dealbreaker, and the user will effortlessly work around many of the shortcomings. Obtaining perfection is more about ego at that point.

So trying to actually use it, ignoring that you are the one who made it, and forbidding yourself to make any modifications for a while, can change everything!

Re: The saddest "Just Ship It" story ever (2020)

#49

Post by shalmanese » Thu, Jul 04, 2024, 6:08 AM UTC

zogrodea wrote: post #34

treve wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire comment reads as someone who has a purely adversarial relationship with their coworkers with little trust. Sounds exhausting!

It reminded me of that quote wrongly attributed to Shigeru Miyamoto (who created Mario and Zelda and other classic games). "A rushed game is bad forever, but a delayed one may eventually be good." Of course it may not apply to software today (except to the extent first impressions count) because modern software tends to be continuously maintained (and modern games often are too, to a much lesser degree, with post-rel…

Games and software operate from a different set of first principles, games are more akin to movies in that we consume them for the experience and that final level of polish often does make or break it.

Re: The saddest "Just Ship It" story ever (2020)

#50

Post by raincole » Thu, Jul 04, 2024, 6:08 AM UTC

silisili wrote: post #18

ggeorgovassilis wrote: post #6

> so I started getting suspicious if someone actually shared the video of my app with these people because they were solving literally the same problem I once met a guy who had a good idea about an app, something that became fairly mainstream two years later. He asked me to code the app for free and we'd share revenues. When asked what his contribution would be, he offered to "run" the company and otherwise his 50% w…

As someone extremely logic and programming oriented, I -wish- I'd met someone like that. I'm just not an idea guy, apparently. If the idea was truly good so much so you believed in it, it was a heck of an offer tbh.

> If the idea was truly good so much so you believed in it, it was a heck of an offer tbh.

Perhaps. But in the past 15 years I've never seen such a good idea.

If one is going to take 50% I'd expect them to be a really good salesman at least.