Re:I wandered off and built an IDE
by sgc on Friday April 06, 2018 @10:20AM
(#16773397)
Builder's sell houses before they build them. I think developers often are intimidated because they might not be certain they can deliver. Nobody with a minimum of experience would hesitate to take 1000 for a quick gig, because it's obviously going to work out. So we need to prove ourselves to ourselves first, and then we will have the confidence to take on larger, more lucrative contracts.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Sometimes. Most builders work both ways: They one's I've worked with closely seem to be about 3/4ths build to order, 1/4th build for sale after. The spec houses are carefully designed to be cheap to build (without sacrificing quality) and look great on the market so they will sell/close fast. Builders want a good looking spec house to show potential custom buyers.
Even when they build spec houses (sometimes crap), they are paid first / at milestones by a bank or investor group. They don't hesitate to take on the job because they are confident in their capacities, which is my main point.
Re:I wandered off and built an IDE
by brianpgordon on Friday April 06, 2018 @02:27PM
(#16775922)
Building a house is very different from building a product. For example, timeline estimates for building a house can be reasonably ascertained; not so for software.
It's the distinction between building something you've built before and architecting a new bridge or building. The latter is a creative effort with lots of variables that are extraordinarily hard to pin down into estimates that would be acceptable in spec house construction.
So, your spec house is the yet-another-crud-webapp, where the spec is clear and the tech mature... Engineers do those too, but they aren't so much entrepreneurs as jobbing contractors or agencies
It's fine to move the analogy, but the point remains the same: The more confident you are in your own capacities, the easier it is to bid on a project. And to be confident in your capacities without it being simple hubris, you need to do difficult things that demonstrate to yourself what you are capable of accomplishing.