8 ms·
You can always do less
- k7d 17y agoOld truth, but it never hurts to remind ourselves.
- revetkn 17y ago"For every 1 day estimates of a task, there’s a simpler version of that you can do in 3 hours, and an even simpler still you can do in 30 minutes. Back yourself into a corner and these versions will vividly appear before your eye. You can always do less." I wonder if this was the reasoning behind 37s' storing passwords in plaintext instead of taking an extra 10 minutes to write the code to encrypt them?
- nwjsmith 17y agoEvidence?
- tome 17y agohttp://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/05/can-you-trust-37signals-with-your.html http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/05/can-you-trust-37signals-with...
- nwjsmith 17y agoThis is from May, and 37signals just made a fairly large change to their authentication system (I think its called Launchpad). Their password recovery system now works differently than described in this post, so I doubt they're still storing them plaintext (thank goodness).
- almost 17y agoAs I understand it they changed how they did things in response to the linked blog post.
- runevault 17y agoYeah, however the point stands that it proves they are willing to act this way about things that are too important to treat said way. Goes to show even good advice can be taken too far.
- revetkn 17y agoYeah, it may work differently now, but I think the point still holds. I understand that engineering's all about tradeoffs and being practical with your time, but things like plaintext passwords are unacceptable (IMHO) in even the first cut of a production system, let alone an established one with a large userbase.
- tjic 17y agoOuch That's going to leave a mark!
- _pius 17y agoTouché.
- tekomino 17y agoThe problem is that this looks good when written but bad when you have to follow it. If you look at 37 Signals products over the years they relentlessly add more and more and more while preaching less and less and less. See disconnect? The truth is that you must always add more otherwise product goes stale. They know it but "do less" as a story sells better...
- megamark16 17y agoMy take on it is that they didn't wait until all of those features were completed to release a product, they hacked through the core functionality within the smallest time frame that they could. You can always "do more" later, if more is a nice to have.
- bonsaitree 17y agoAgreed. This is a nice doctrine to follow for an alpha release or a prototype/demo to shop around for investors, but ALL software used daily in the "real-world" grows in complexity over time. This axiom holds true in everything from cardiac pacemaker micro-code ( http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5843138.html http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5843138.html ), space shuttle avionics ( http://tinyurl.com/475kyv http://tinyurl.com/475kyv ), or my favorite current example of real-world purposeful constraint, SQLite ( http://www.sqlite.org/version3.html http://www.sqlite.org/version3.html ).
- grinich 17y agoDoing less is not about letting a product go stale. It's about focus. It's true that all of their products have evolved, but they haven't simply been piling on the features. The value of a product is not in the number of things it can do. Products stand out by doing one thing very well. You don't need twenty features. You only need one.
- kevinholesh 17y agoTheir products have definitely grown, but I think they've improved rather than falling victim to feature creep. Look at what Basecamp could've become without their constant "you can always do less" mentality: http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/project-professional-2007.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/project-professional-...
- z8000 17y agoThis was the best part of the referenced page: "Don’t be such a suck up Dan." As if Carl here was just so damn annoyed that Dan beat him to "first DHH! First! Pick me for kickball!" I just picture Jan Brady as Carl: "Marsha Marsha Marsha!" Ok enough semi entertainment by poking fun at the followers of David (since when did he start going by one name like Prince or Madonna or Quasimoto?)
- daniel-cussen 17y agoI read "The Rails Way" and apparently he hates the moniker DHH. He prefers Heinemeier Hansson, if he's being referred to by his last name like Dawkins or Lessig or Obama, but if it's more casual or frequent, especially if it's on his blog, David works. I suddenly feel all fanboyish though...ech.
- dhh 17y agoHeh, I actually don't mind DHH in written form (let's face it, it's a long name and plenty of people can't get the spelling right). It's when people start calling me that in-person where things get a little weird.
- gry 17y agoI had heard you didn't like DHH before as well. I thought it was DHH being DHH. I couldn't have been more wrong.
- davidw 17y ago> What stops most people from doing less is the fear of failure. I think most people do more because they figure (right or wrong) that it's a good way to compete. Not everyone wrote Rails and has a huge 'following', so they need other barriers to entry for their products.
- tennisman120 17y agoThey're great at taking the same thing, changing a few minor things, then turning around and selling it.