In my opinion, the difference between good code and code that simply works (sometimes barely); is that good code will still work (or error out gracefully) when the state and the inputs are not as expected.
Good programs are written by people who anticipate what might go wrong. If the document says 'don't do X'; they know a tester is likely to try X because a user will eventually do it.
I also started one of these several years ago and I have only implemented about half of the features on my todo list so far.
But I have many features working and each one feels like a victory when it gets working properly. Each time I find a few hours to work on it, I pick a task that I think I can complete within a day or two.
It feels like trying to climb a big mountain. You don't keep looking at the summit and feel overwhelmed because it seems so far away. Instead you look at the next milestone, which may be a rock just a few hundred feet away. When you reach it, you take a deep breath and pick the next target to work towards.
I love that! Climbing a mountain would be such an arduous task, impossible even! But taking another small step can be fun and easy. Keep having fun, and if you find yourself at the very top, look for another mountain.
Once upon a time, the price of a product was often a good indicator of its quality. If you saw two products side by side on the shelf and one was more expensive, then you might assume that it was less likely to break or wear out soon.
Now it seems that the price has very little to do with quality. Cheaply made products might be priced higher just to give the appearance of quality. Even well known brands will cut corners to save a buck or two.
I have purchased things at bargain prices that did everything I wanted and more. I have also paid a lot for things that disappointed me greatly.
A big part of the drive towards lower prices is likely driven by companies exploiting that lack of information to deliver a low-quality product for a high price. Consumers rationally respond to this by just always picking the low-price product
Unless, of course, there's another factor (such as brand) that assures users they are receiving something worth spending extra on (and of course it's oh so easy for companies with such a reputation to temporarily juice returns if they are willing to make sacrifices)
Within the (wide!) price tier in which most people buy furniture, almost everything is worse than IKEA but a lot of it’s 2-3x the price. You have to go even higher to get consistently-better-than-ikea, but most people won’t even see that kind of furniture when they go shopping for a new couch or kitchen table.
>Once upon a time, the price of a product was often a good indicator of its quality. If you saw two products side by side on the shelf and one was more expensive, then you might assume that it was less likely to break or wear out soon.
I don't think this has ever actually been true. There was plenty of expensive snake oil in 1800s America. There were plenty of expensive shit things. There always has been. Christ, that ancient tablet of that guy complaining about copper quality is one of the oldest written documents we have, and I can assure you that copper was not cheap.
Price has never been a signal of quality because it wouldn't make any sense. The price is set by the seller. That's the only signal it can convey; what the seller expects you to pay. There's never been a perfectly efficient market where a seller is forced to set the price of something to match it's value or quality. There has always been information asymmetry. There has always been a difficulty in finding out whether that thing for sale is actually worth it.
> The waste, fraud, and abuse that runs rampant throughout the government tells us that the powerful often use taxpayer dollars as their own slush fund.
I don't know that it's worse than any other institution? At least voters can remove the corrupt, and they are prosecuted. Are you saying these uber-wealthy and CEOs aren't just as corrupt or worse?
What I am saying is that I have a choice whether my money goes to a corporation or to a charity. I don't get to choose whether I pay taxes or not.
More often than not, corruption in government does not result in the perpetrator being prosecuted or even removed from office.
I am amazed at all the people who are so sure that corporations and/or wealthy investors are corrupt, but give big government a pass. As if the same types of people don't run both.
Its probably not so much that government gets a pass as much as government is the organization that, by virtue of being a citizen, they own and control, so when things go wrong it is their own fault, and they really don't want to accept blame for their own faults. They would have to ask "How did I manage to fuck this up?", which is a hard question for most people to ask themselves.
When it is distinctly someone else's organization it's much easier to throw pointless shade to make one feel better about their own failings.
> I am amazed at all the people who are so sure that corporations and/or wealthy investors are corrupt, but give big government a pass.
Where do you find these people? I've never met them. It seems like everyone complains about government waste and corruption - even when it's not happening!
> Sure the government does much to relieve the suffering of people around the globe;
If we're talking specifically about the U.S. government, I suspect its decisions cause more suffering globally than they alleviate, though of course there are open philosophical questions inherent in any attempt to quantify suffering.
I really like friends who completely ignore the things that I like and insist that we do the things that they like instead, and talk only about things that interest them! /s
So, is this why the software world is full of bloated, slow, and buggy applications? Work on something just long enough to get it barely functional so the manager can check some box; then quickly move on to the next thing??
Sure, there is always a point of diminishing returns; but leaving something only half-finished will cause more problems down the road.
I have been brought in several times during my career to fix something that initially passed some acceptance criteria; but later became unusable once the load picked up (massive data, more concurrent users, etc.).
The world doesn't need just more apps. It needs many of the current ones to work better.
This tactic is especially effective when considering a hotly contested political topic where nearly half the country is in favor of one side, while the other half takes the opposite stance.
Two reasonable people can look at all the evidence available and come to completely opposite conclusions. If you have a clear bias for one side or the other before weighing the evidence; then you might come away with the conclusion that people who believe the opposite must be crazy.
Good programs are written by people who anticipate what might go wrong. If the document says 'don't do X'; they know a tester is likely to try X because a user will eventually do it.
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