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Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)

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Re: Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)

#151

Post by sathish316 »

sathish316 wrote: post #149

I call it the Intent-Implement-Quality problem. Software factories can implement anything given a one-liner requirement. That one-liner requirement can be a complete app/product, epic, feature, bug, design change or refactoring. But these one liner requirements are requirements coming from a human who has an intent or requirement or direction for the product to evolve in mind. Can Software factories manufacture inten…

If you’re working on an app or software that has few users, no revenue or minimal revenue, tolerance to bugs is higher and just another Claude prompt away, Software factories are a perfect fit. Most personal software or hobby software or 0-1 yet-to-find-PMF startups belong in this category.

You can even take a stand that you’ll never look at the code and just ship. This is a perfect equilibrium for a Software factory, where the only input or feedback is a one-liner/specced requirement and the only output is outcome of whether the one-liner requirement worked or not.

For almost any other software that does not fit this criteria, software factories are yet to solve the Intent and Subjective Quality problem.

Re: Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)

#152

Post by canpan »

sathish316 wrote: post #149

I call it the Intent-Implement-Quality problem. Software factories can implement anything given a one-liner requirement. That one-liner requirement can be a complete app/product, epic, feature, bug, design change or refactoring. But these one liner requirements are requirements coming from a human who has an intent or requirement or direction for the product to evolve in mind. Can Software factories manufacture inten…

It's even worse: Customer says I want X!

One or more of the following can be true:

  - Customer really wants X
  - Customer doesnt actually need X at all
  - Customer wants Y not X but couldnt express himself
  - Customer B and C do NOT want X at all
  - Customer is just messing with you for no reason

Re: Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)

#154

Post by chicagopluto »

This is a great write up. I buy the argument against the dark factory approach, but I would be curious to hear if their process has changed at all with Fable/GPT-5.6. I believe the keynote this is based on (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib5GBkD555M) was given while Fable was still banned and GPT-5.6 had not yet been released. Has HumanLayer found they still need to follow as deliberate of a pre-work planning process as before? Or do they find that Fable/GPT-5.6 are able to do more with slightly less handholding?

Re: Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)

#155

Post by dhorthy »

chicagopluto wrote: post #154

This is a great write up. I buy the argument against the dark factory approach, but I would be curious to hear if their process has changed at all with Fable/GPT-5.6. I believe the keynote this is based on (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib5GBkD555M) was given while Fable was still banned and GPT-5.6 had not yet been released. Has HumanLayer found they still need to follow as deliberate of a pre-work planning process as bef…

i did a write up on fable while it was out - it can do big refactors, but it does not know what to change without human steering. For that, you need humans to know what to ask for.

lights off is still out for me

https://x.com/dexhorthy/status/2064747631885398231

Re: Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)

#156

Post by dhorthy »

bavell wrote: post #146

Good read and matches my experience pretty well, but I'd humbly suggest the author look up the definition of 'vertical' and 'horizontal' and swap their terminology + fix their videos :)

i humbly disagree - horizontal means touching one plane of the stack across, vertical means cutting down through it and touching multiple layers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_slice

Re: Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)

#157

Post by softwaredoug »

If you built a real factory, you’d basically never want it to be dark. You’d want a culture of getting wrenches out to inspect the cars being built. You’d want to care about small details. Not because we need to build cars by hand. But because looking at the real product (cars, code, etc) is the best way to make the factory better. It’s the best way to know what problems aren’t being measured, what processes need to improve, and how automation can produce a better end product.

https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2026/07/09/write-code.html

Re: Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)

#158

Post by dhorthy »

softwaredoug wrote: post #157

If you built a real factory, you’d basically never want it to be dark. You’d want a culture of getting wrenches out to inspect the cars being built. You’d want to care about small details. Not because we need to build cars by hand. But because looking at the real product (cars, code, etc) is the best way to make the factory better. It’s the best way to know what problems aren’t being measured, what processes need to…

don't forget the andon cord

Re: Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)

#159

Post by reinitctxoffset »

orsenthil wrote: post #136

I find it amusing that people who are talking about Dark Software Factories, are talking about productivity in terms of number of pull requests or commits as a unit. If we are going in the Dark Software Factory route, why aren't we calling the code units as bos (bunch of shit) yet.

No one serious about the idea can afford either vanity metrics nor ignorance of the code. The bar is higher, not lower, to operate with this much automation in the water supply. It's mostly a lot more math and a lot more work.

It's an extreme form of any startup: you trade off capital for years of your life.

Re: Why Software Factories Fail (or: harness engineering is not enough)

#160

Post by ffsm8 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #157

If you built a real factory, you’d basically never want it to be dark. You’d want a culture of getting wrenches out to inspect the cars being built. You’d want to care about small details. Not because we need to build cars by hand. But because looking at the real product (cars, code, etc) is the best way to make the factory better. It’s the best way to know what problems aren’t being measured, what processes need to…

> If you built a real factory, you’d basically never want it to be dark

This statement seems to be factually untrue as the fully automated factories in China are indeed not illuminated for most of the time

In USA/Europe we just don't have that level of automation

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