[HN Gopher] Ways to ship software ___________________________________________________________________ Ways to ship software Author : notoriousarun Score : 41 points Date : 2021-07-03 11:01 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (review.firstround.com) (TXT) w3m dump (review.firstround.com) | Swizec wrote: | After a few years in startups, I've found the only death knell to | shipping software - when product runs out of ideas. | | You can work around everything else. Prioritize speed or | stability, use different standards for different areas, even any | number of project management methodologies. A group of talented | folks with a goal can make anything work. | | But when you're out of ideas, that's when shipping dies. Your | engineering department devolves into a pile of factorings and | refactorings and turd polishing projects and academic exercises | and none of it drives the business forward. It's just busywork | because engineers are expensive. | | And trust me, they're gonna get tired of the busywork and they | will leave. You'll get tired of paying them for busywork too. | Zababa wrote: | > when product runs out of ideas | | Could this mean that the product is "finished" and you can put | it in support mode and slowly reduce the number of people | working on it? | Swizec wrote: | That may be, but it doesn't jive with the VC monkey strapped | to your back. It usually means there isn't enough user | interest/engagement. | | Users always have problems they run into or novel usecases | they'd like to use you for. | robotresearcher wrote: | Why slowly? | dirtyaura wrote: | An excellent piece. I'm especially interested to hear stories | from the fellow HNers about the last point Jocelyn mentions: how | to build 2 shipping cultures inside one company, when your | business requires it (for example: two-sided marketplaces with | different apps for consumer and businesses). | | In our case, we have this situation with SW vs HW shipping | culture. On the SW side, we focus on continuously developing | features and have deliberately emphasized productivity over | schedule-predictability, while on the HW side they naturally are | focused more on schedule-predictability due to complex | dependencies. | | Now, this dichotomy has created an interesting discussions inside | the company on the right way to ship products and projects, and | to me, arguments mainly come from the fact that people come from | the different shipping culture and have hard time to see the | benefits and requirements of the other culture. | Mertax wrote: | I also come from a company that ships both HW & SW products. | Our HW roots are much deeper than our SW roots and HW shipping | mentalities have mostly prevailed (low risk tolerance, | waterfall development, strict schedule). | | Where we've had success is identifying the difference between | SW that supports the hardware vs independent SW products that | compliment the HW, and choosing to ship those products with | different processes. Basically if the SW can support a | recurring revenue model it follows a continuous development | process. But if the software is really just the "operating | system" for the hardware then it ships very much the way the | rest of HW ships. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-07-04 23:00 UTC)