Am I the only one that really hates the carpenter analogy? As someone who does woodworking on the side of my programming, there's a million reasons why it's a terrible way to think about software development. The chair doesn't have supported platforms, new security issues, or the need to be updated so that people keep buying the same chair. Someone else isn't going to have to come along later to maintain the chair and have to be knowledgeable about the specific tools that the chair was built with.
Finish your stuff
51–60 of 177 posts
Re: Finish your stuff
#52I thought the Unix philosophy embraced the idea of "small tools that do one thing really well." > Please join me in my effort and do finish your projects. Hear, hear. A friend and I hosted a "Finish it! Weekend" once (as opposed to a "Startup Weekend"). The idea was to get people together for one weekend and finish that last 10% or whatever of a project. Sadly we were the only two to show up. (And we both finished ou…
> I thought the Unix philosophy embraced the idea of "small tools that do one thing really well."
Big monoliths are too useful to go away. Does emacs "do one thing and do it well?" No, it does a million things, some of them better than others. Nevertheless, lots of Unix guys use it.
Re: Finish your stuff
#53Am I the only one that really hates the carpenter analogy? As someone who does woodworking on the side of my programming, there's a million reasons why it's a terrible way to think about software development. The chair doesn't have supported platforms, new security issues, or the need to be updated so that people keep buying the same chair. Someone else isn't going to have to come along later to maintain the chair an…
Don't forget that a programmer's work is not really like making three of the same chair either. Maybe if every single thing the carpenter made was a highly customized bespoke piece.
Re: Finish your stuff
#54"Real artists ship" "if you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Release_early,_release_often I'm sure there are many others, but these ones keep me shipping.
If you're embarrassed by the first version of your product (i.e. suppose it's buggy, or is lacking in it's UI) then it's probably not ready to ship? There is nothing worse than shipping a half-baked product.
There are a lot of things, like say your competitors eating your lunch. If someone comes along and sort of satisfies the need it's easier for them to get people to upgrade than it is for you to come along later with a more polished product and ask them to migrate.
Re: Finish your stuff
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're both right. And knowing the right balance is the key.
Reid Hoffman: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bldr6K1IEAAzeSl.jpg:large
Thanks. I had trouble reading it in text form, but now that it's an image that includes a guy's head I get the point.
Re: Finish your stuff
#56> You bought a damned chair and you want it to remain a chair, not to find out that it's some kind of protean piece of furniture that's a chair today and partly a table tomorrow and, who knows, maybe you'll be able to humidify your cigars in it next week. This is exactly my problem with web-services (and software that auto-updates itself).
I wish more software updated itself. I don't want to navigate to the download page and run the installer every time it updates. That's busywork.
Re: Finish your stuff
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I ever buy a car with skateboard as a chassis, I'll be very disappointed! Sorry, just had to =)
Probably it should be build the tyre first. This is a functionally complete thing that can, along with many other functionally complete things be composed into the car.
Car built with scooter tires... Scooter built with car tires...
Just not seeing it.
When Java was first becoming popular, I recall emphasizing how important it was to use the standard, well-documented, well-tested java.lang.String, rather than a custom String class as had been done in C++. Application domain experts started asking about strings that didn't fit in RAM (documents).
A great, tested component in one domain may require a significant redesign in a domain with other requirements.
Re: Finish your stuff
#58Re: Finish your stuff
#59Am I the only one that really hates the carpenter analogy? As someone who does woodworking on the side of my programming, there's a million reasons why it's a terrible way to think about software development. The chair doesn't have supported platforms, new security issues, or the need to be updated so that people keep buying the same chair. Someone else isn't going to have to come along later to maintain the chair an…
Carpenter analogy is as bad as the "book author" analogy. You write a book and let it go. Nothing to support, all updates are to be paid by customers in a new release.
Re: Finish your stuff
#60Am I the only one that really hates the carpenter analogy? As someone who does woodworking on the side of my programming, there's a million reasons why it's a terrible way to think about software development. The chair doesn't have supported platforms, new security issues, or the need to be updated so that people keep buying the same chair. Someone else isn't going to have to come along later to maintain the chair an…
(Oil) Painting is a better analogy in some ways, as each project is unique, may have evolving requirements, rework, etc.
And the fact that projects are rarely "done", you just stop working on them at some point (hopefully a "good enough" point)
Mismatches include near total lack of reusability/composability, solo vs group effort, etc.
All analogies are flawed, some are useful.