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A whole decade, and the software is still sub-par.

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Started by Tutorial Doctor March 19, 2014 11:58 PM

30 comments, last by Aardvajk 10 years, 1 month ago

Tutorial Doctor

2,574

Author

March 19, 2014 11:58 PM

I have always had a problem getting started on a project because I can never say "yes" to the question, "Is it a worthwhile project."

I saw the FAQS in the business forum about "worthwhile" things, and I saw where they say that if it is worthwhile to me, then that is enough.

But this one company has spent more than a decade developing this one software, and it so very inadequate. 10 yrs!

Small team or whatnot, and I am sure they are proud of their accomplisment, but if it were me, I would be comparing my software to other software in my genre, and very quickly I would say to myself, "all that time for nothing."

Thing is, if I do something I want it top notch, and I do understand that such a software will take a while, especially if it is only me. But I just can't put 10 yrs in like that. Way too long.

This is why I am constantly finding fast and efficient ways to do things.

Has anyone ever had this feeling towards something they have worked on?

They call me the Tutorial Doctor.

frob

46,223

March 20, 2014 12:47 AM

But this one company has spent more than a decade developing this one software, and it so very inadequate. 10 yrs!

Care to be more specific?

Oh, wait! I see. You are talking about Duke Nukem Forever.

No, seriously, what is the point of your rant? An unspecified group working on an unspecified project fail to meet your unspecified requirements. Welcome to life.

Unless it is something you have a contract for, I don't see the point.

alnite

3,454

March 20, 2014 01:22 AM

There's more to software development than just coding. Planning, meetings, testing, and all that stuff, and although each of the members is adept in what they do, the combination of the process and the differences in the personality can cause a lot of frictions, communications, and eventually bugs in the software.

slicer4ever

6,773

March 20, 2014 01:59 AM

But this one company has spent more than a decade developing this one software, and it so very inadequate. 10 yrs!
Care to be more specific?

Oh, wait! I see. You are talking about Duke Nukem Forever.

I truly hope he's not referring to duke nukem. it was in development hell/hiatus for most of it's life, and only realistically was made in a year or 2.

Check out https://www.facebook.com/LiquidGames for some great games made by me on the Playstation Mobile market.

Tutorial Doctor

2,574

Author

March 20, 2014 03:08 AM

Haha. No, not Duke Nukem. I didn't want to name the company. Didn't want to put them on blast like that. But they recently released Version 1 after over a decade of development and I hadn't realized it had been that long, but when I saw it I wondered if I could dedicate that much of my life to just one project that quickly becomes obsolete because of technology changes and such.

If I were working for a company and was getting paid for that 10 yrs, then that would be fine. Not the case here though, I know it was for the love of programming, but boy did it make me reconsider some things. haha.

At this point, I don't know the real-life time schedules for software development, or even yet all of the things that actually go into producing a polished project. But, the type of person I am, I have to have polish or else I won't release it.

I think one of the smartest things I have seen is a company make their software opensource (was paid before) and let other devs contribute features. This way the software gets better, and a lot of time you have people who are willing to work on it free for the open sourced community. At first I thought it was a bad idea, but the updates to the software are more frequent now, and I am liking the new features as well.

They call me the Tutorial Doctor.

HScottH

520

March 20, 2014 05:24 AM

I can really relate. It's amazing that there are teams working for years and years between releases. I have recently worked with a team who is occasionally rev'ing a product that was first launched in the 70's, and they are still making millions from the product.

As a geek, I like to turn things around in 1/2 to 1 year and release, just because I know my most amazing ideas will be poo in about that time. But the fact is that business operates on different time scales.

"Is it worth is?" I can think of many metrics with which to answer that:

* Is it fun and educational

* Is it going to prepare you for something valuable later

* Will it make money

In most cases, the last one is the one that gets all the merrit.

fir

-460

March 20, 2014 06:46 AM

Sadly your worries are to be about true imo. If you devote 5 years everyday work you should manage noticable improvement in programming clarity (compared to 5 years back) but besides that not much will change and even 10 years will not grant you to do some polished thing you have on yr mind.. After 5 (5 to 8) years of consecutive programming I began to be sorry of this last about ten years of my youth (age 26 to 36) wasted on this very hard and lone work - though Im still hoping it will pay back (maybe)...

DareDeveloper

1,018

March 20, 2014 07:30 AM

At first I thought I had related feelings. Then I read

This is why I am constantly finding fast and efficient ways to do things.

At that point I knew I was thinking of something else. I developed a strong reaction to such careless Agile impulse implementations.

As I see it if you want those 10 years to show you need to put a lot of time and thought into a strong foundation.

That foundation can develop over time through a lean startup approach with clean code refactorings ... but finding isolated fast and efficient solutions for the problem at hand ... that will not lead to a great and complex product - it is not a way to manage complexity.