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Comment by londons_explore

2 years ago

If you're paying a developer by the hour, and want your app released in the app store using as few hours as possible, then this approach can be the most cost efficient one.

Sure, it isn't good practice. Sure, it probably isn't what NASA should be doing. But if you're literally building yet another uber-like app, you probably shouldn't be spending too long thinking about details.

> this approach can be the most cost efficient one.

No it can’t. Quick and dirty? Sure. Take on some tech debt to get to market quicker. Blindly copying and pasting? You’re never going to build functional software that way. This guy was committing code with syntax errors that he’d obviously never even run. How are you going to get to market quickly that way?

The comment you're responding to said the guy was copying the wrong language at times. Code that won't even compile isn't making it into the app store.

Yeah, those details like whether or not it works really don't matter. NASA is overrated.

  • rarely are things so black and white. If you're just pushing out an MVP, something that takes 5 seconds and is 95% correct is often better than 30 minutes and 100% correct.

    • I'm willing to entertain the idea that copy/paste from SO may the right option in some cases, but you have to apply at least a little scrutiny. I'm not sure exactly where the bar should be for an MVP, but "[s]ometimes it wasn’t even the right language" is definitely below it.

    • maybe if you don't give a fuck about your users or the future maintainers, but for the time span of just 30m to make sure there's no bugs, and it's easy to maintain? MVP or not you're still a bad engineer if you actually do this.

      Correct and broken are black and white if you can divide the problem correctly, and there's no excuse for shipping broken code. At some point someone has to take responsibility for not shipping garbage. I get that you, me, or any engineer don't always have that luxury, but it should be a shameful thing not something you accept as normal or ok.

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