←back to thread

758 points alihm | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
meander_water ◴[] No.44469163[source]
> the "taste-skill discrepancy." Your taste (your ability to recognize quality) develops faster than your skill (your ability to produce it). This creates what Ira Glass famously called "the gap," but I think of it as the thing that separates creators from consumers.

This resonated quite strongly with me. It puts into words something that I've been feeling when working with AI. If you're new to something and using AI for it, it automatically boosts the floor of your taste, but not your skill. And you end up never slowing down to make mistakes and learn, because you can just do it without friction.

replies(8): >>44469175 #>>44469439 #>>44469556 #>>44469609 #>>44470520 #>>44470531 #>>44470633 #>>44474386 #
chatmasta ◴[] No.44469556[source]
This is exactly why I’m wary of ever attempting a developer-focused startup ever again.

What’s not mentioned is the utter frustration when you can see your own output is not up to your own expectations, but you can’t execute on any plan to resolve that discrepancy.

“I know what developers want, so I can build it for them” is a death knell proportionate to your own standards…

The most profitable business I built was something I hacked together in two weeks during college holiday break, when I barely knew how to code. There was no source control (I was googling “what is GitHub” at the time), it was my first time writing Python, I stored passwords in plaintext… but within a year it was generating $20k a month in revenue. It did eventually collapse under its own weight from technical debt, bugs and support cost… and I wasn’t equipped to solve those problems.

But meanwhile, as the years went on and I actually learned about quality, I lost the ability to ship because I gained the ability to recognize when it wasn’t ready… it’s not quite “perfectionism,” but it’s borne of the same pathology, of letting perfect be the enemy of good.

replies(4): >>44470028 #>>44470894 #>>44472540 #>>44473800 #
1. ido ◴[] No.44470894[source]

    a developer-focused startup
I'm sorry to tell you it doesn't just apply to developer-focused startups!
replies(1): >>44471697 #
2. ludicrousdispla ◴[] No.44471697[source]
Within every startup, there is a developer-focused startup that is trying to get out. I suppose that is because it is easier for people to think about problems that affect them directly.

Or maybe it's the only way in which companies these days give software developers agency.