Comment by HeyLaughingBoy

2 years ago

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.

    • Maybe spending 30 minutes on one bug is worth it, maybe not. If you're pre-revenue / pre-product-market-fit and you compound tens to hundreds of these 5s to 30m decisions, you're risking running out of time or money before anyone even uses your product.

      I would argue it's much worse "engineering" to have no product at all.

      4 replies →