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The Best Project
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Mike McQuaid
September 29, 2022
Technology
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160
The Best Project
The best project I ever worked on and what we can learn about software from the lessons I learnt.
Mike McQuaid
September 29, 2022
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Transcript
The Best Project 🤨 😫 😕 @MikeMcQuaid
me 👋
Principal Engineer in Communities (GitHub Engineer 2013 – Present)
Project Leader on Homebrew (Homebrew Maintainer 2009 – Present)
the best project 🎉
avoiding legacy systems and building nicely from scratch ✅
doing things right the first time and avoiding failure ✅
well-staffed team with well-planned backlog of work ✅
project result: 💩
ignorance 🤨
you know everything
you know everything nothing
(How I Get Things Done) https://mmq.lol/how
(G.K.) Chesterton’s Fence
“this fence is useless, let’s remove it!” 🙅
“this fence was used for keeping sheep out, let’s remove
it!” 🙌
“this code is useless, let’s remove it!” 🙅
“this code was used for keeping bots out, let’s remove
it!” 🙌
“this code was used for ….? let’s be careful…” 🥳
incompetence 😫
do things right the first time
do things wrong the first time
https://timharford.com/2022/05/cautionary-tales- bless-the-coal-black-hearts-of-the-broadway-critics/
None
None
do things right the tenth time
you will fail
you will fail privately
you will fail publicly (unless privately)
failing privately == low cost
failing privately == low traffic
failing publicly == high traffic
insignificance 😕
huge ship! 🛳
huge team! 🏢
huge scope! 🔭
huge risk! 💣
tiny ship! 🛶
tiny team! 👭
tiny scope! 🔬
tiny risk! 😌
your MVP is not very M
your MVP is not released yet
the worst project 🎉
built on legacy systems with little understanding ⛔
shipping hacks to clean up later and failing early, often
⛔
under-staffed team doing unplanned and backlog work ⛔
project result: 🥳
None
😫 assumed ignorance 😫 expected incompetence 😕 initial insignificance
🧑🎓 assumed ignorance 🧘 expected incompetence 🔍 initial insignificance
questions? 🙋 https://mmq.lol/best/ @MikeMcQuaid mike@mikemcquaid.com