Ask HN: How did your first software project go? - Kevin_S
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flukus
When it started it was just me and another junior programmer trying to build
something too complicated for our experience level. Later on we got someone
more experienced, unfortunately (for the project) 10 years on he is still the
worst developer I've ever worked with, not helped by his arrogance. All of his
experience was drag'n'drop VB forms, but he had a CS degree and we didn't, so
that made him right every time. He also made us switch from SVN to to VSS, svn
wasn't so great back then (no merge tracking) but at least it didn't silently
fail every other day like VSS. He didn't believe in using framework features,
preferring instead to write his own sorting algorithms that didn't work. His
attitude to compile errors was to turn off the strict/explicit options that VB
has. He was the living example of a developer with 1 year of experience 10
times over.

Technology wise we went through several iterations, web, descktop, c#, an
experimental java one, but thanks to the senior dev we settled on VB.net.
Management was more interested in hiring people that would be sitting at their
desks at 9AM (I was eventually fired for failing this) than any sort of
technical competence. The manager was the type that "understood people" and
forced us to put in all sorts of questionable UI features. He was obsessed
with how it looked and didn't care if it worked. Every point release involved
working through the weekend.

Amazingly the software was quite well received and didn't suffer from too many
production bugs. It was delivered only slight late and made the company money.

Then the company got a bunch of funding and things became more hilarious.
Management was obsessed with becoming the "google of our industry" and
preceded to do the exact opposite of everything google would would do. But
those are stories for another time.

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Xavier66
First major software project was with a startup I worked for. It was a 3 month
project that ended up being extended due to lack of concrete requirements, the
client would constantly add/remove features during development which
contributed to the projects extension. When the project was near completion,
the client demanded to the CEO that he lower the quote on the project because
it went past the deadline (this was after we explained to the CEO that the
extra features added by the client will take more time, so he was fully aware
that extra time would be needed). After the CEO told the client that he can't
lower the extremely under-quoted budget, the client left. After four months of
full time work on this project, the CEO told us he can't pay us anything
because he spent the clients deposit on things he refuses to discuss. I am not
sure how the startup is currently doing, but almost all of the developers left
after that project. Ultimately this was a huge learning experience for me as a
developer, as bad as the entire situation was I learned a lot of things that
will ultimately benefit me in the future.

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breeny592
Checklist:

\- [x] Working in a consultancy

\- [x] Government client

\- [x] No direct communication with the users

\- [x] Waterfall project

\- [x] Short timeline

\- [x] Understaffed

\- [ ] Clear requirements

Was definitely delivered on time and on budget...

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tejas1mehta
Bad code but good product

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jklein11
Poorly

