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13 Oct, 4 tweets, 1 min read
"Highly specific project definitions usually go astray very quickly. Vague enough definitions allow for creativity and selectivity.. And when you allow for those two things, you empower [the people doing the work] with the agency to do the best work." medium.com/computers-are-…
What's so fascinating about software development's inability to deliver a given spec by a given date for decades on end is that PEOPLE STILL THINK IT'S DOABLE! Yeah, sure, this fails like, all the time, BUT THIS TIME IT'LL BE DIFFERENT! 😂
What's worse than it not working, though, is the amount of needless guilt it produces. Most people feel bad when they thought something would take two weeks, but it ended up taking four. Like they're personally to blame for the inability to estimate the un-estimatable. No. Stop.
The empirical data is in: Estimating software does not work. The entire premise is bunk. There's no workshop you can take, no methodology you can employ, that'll suddenly change this basic fact. So you should stop trying. Please.

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More from @dhh

DHH Profile picture
14 Oct
Apple charging an extra $30 for the new iPhone unless you're getting it from one of their Preferred Carriers is the kind of petty, grinding shit that makes you rue for what other Value Added Deals are coming next. Maybe just a little bit of junkware? Maybe just one ad on boot.
It stinks split-pea soup parable. Who's going to complain? IT'S JUST $30! It'll help drive this quarter. But this quarter is never the last; you gotta beat the next too. Once you start removing the peas, you'll eventually end up with a soup that has none. m.signalvnoise.com/exponential-gr… Image
It's the ultimate example that the hamster wheel never stops. Once you're out of inherently compelling product ideas, you inevitably start fucking with the basic business model to win the next area of growth. Even at two fucking trillion, you can't escape this capitalist trap.
Read 6 tweets
DHH Profile picture
13 Oct
First Copenhagen kicked out Uber, now it's kicking out all the scooter companies that've been littering the streets with their business model. Bravo 👏. Electric scooters are nice and fun, but the SV Wild West approach to deployment has been a plague. politiken.dk/ibyen/art79558…
I love that a key reasoning is simply aesthetics! It looks like shit when the streets are littered with tipped over scooters, and Copenhagen does not want to be a city that looks like that, so they just ban that type of business model. Bam.
What's equally compelling here is a basic refusal to simply let unicorn-status-chasing companies dictate how the city should look or feel. This is the essence of democratic control. Now we just need Denmark (and Europe!) to do the same in the digital realm too!
Read 5 tweets
DHH Profile picture
12 Oct
What draws me back to twitter is the potential of planting seeds. It's exceedingly rare that you'll convince anyone of anything in the moment, but I repeatedly hear from people where a successful seed got under their skull, a question was lodged, a nagging awakened.
Six weeks, six months, or six years later, some of those seeds will have blossomed into a new perspective. It's gratifying to help cultivate such doubt and rebellion in the otherwise rigid, trotten paths of stranger's brains.
And the same happens the other way! I've picked up countless seeds from this god-forsaken place over the years. Flowerings of which have permanently, positively changed my mind in the most literal sense of becoming a different person.
Read 6 tweets
DHH Profile picture
12 Oct
When you first open Twitter after a long time away, you can immediately understand why they might have trouble with continued user growth. Because there's really no other reaction than "what even is this?!", "why are everyone shouting about everything all of the time?". Still...
The flipside is that the calm and tranquil living that is a mind without Twitter eventually feels fake. Which is the damndest thing. Maybe it's just long-term withdrawal. Maybe it's like McQueen and "everything else is just waiting".
Or maybe it's just like Cypher said, the only way to really enjoy a long-term disengagement from Twitter is to somehow "remember nothing". Which of course isn't possible (is it???). Thus the pull back towards the simulacra of the public square remains.
Read 5 tweets
DHH Profile picture
7 Aug
Yes, Europe needs a digital independence movement, but how about instead of pinning those hopes on a bunch of rebels with a shoestring budget, Europeans ask their elected officials to do what they've been elected to do: Govern.
It should be a continental embarrassment that Europe has simply let its modes of communication, collaboration, distribution, and digital welfare get captured by a gang of American big tech companies. The best time to fix that was 20 years ago, next best time is today.
Europe has been leading the charge on privacy with the GDPR, but ultimately, those teeth have little bite, if you don't have a sovereign software and services industry that you can hold directly, democratically accountable.
Read 4 tweets
DHH Profile picture
6 Aug
Google just banned a kids app produced by Danish Public Radio because some characters were using a pipe and fighting ninjas. Patently absurd. How many more instances of cultural imperialism does the EU need? politiken.dk/kultur/medier/…»Man-er-nødt-til-at-sætte-en-grænse-et-sted«
Also yet another example that EU has backed itself into a corner where it has zero control over its own culture or destiny. When Google decides that a Danish kids program violates prudent American norms, it's just banned. Nowhere to go, nowhere to appeal. FFS, wake up.
It's hard to underscore just how absurd this situation is. Danish Public Radio is operating on a public-service license issued by the Danish government. That's who they're accountable to for their programming, not some fucking big tech conglomerate from Silicon Valley.
Read 11 tweets

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