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Comment by azdle | Hacker News Reader

I cared and cared enough to quit. Worked my last (and first real software) job for about 5 years and quit a month ago because of this kind of thing, at least in part. I was getting good at making the v1, but never learning how to really do anything beyond that. And figuring out how to ship an MVP is the least important part, so if that's all you're learning you're missing out on what will make you successful at a place that's actually successful.

Plus, I'll just generally disagree with you, sitting there making stuff that falls right into the garbage can is incredibly depressing. What's the point?

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> sitting there making stuff that falls right into the garbage can is incredibly depressing. What's the point?

A very journey vs destination thought. If the journey is your goal, then you already have the "point" you're looking for. If, however, the destination is the goal, then you are forever reaching out for your next "point", and the moment you reach one, you'll be reaching for another. Always looking for your next point that will never satisfy you.

The preeminent philosopher Jake the Dog had an interesting comment about this sort of thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFsQprx5pQM

I get where you're coming from and hadn't really thought on that aspect explicitly yet, but my first thought is that rather I'm missing half of the journey that I want to have.

To torture a metaphor, I like hiking, my wife and I have a goal of hiking the whole SHT [1] in bits and pieces over the course of 5 years. We've found parts of the trail that are absolutely amazing to hike, we could just hike those sames bits over and over again because we know that they're amazing and not risk having to hike the bits that are just a mowed bit of grassland (which is uninteresting to hike), but then we'd be missing out on the whole experiance and not only that we might be missing out on even better sections that we haven't encountered yet.

I feel the same way about how I'm progressing in my career. I could keep doing the same bit over and over again and I'd probably be pretty damn good at it, but I just can't let myself. I'd rather keep exploring, keep experiencing not only what's new, but what's old-hat to others but new to me, and see if there's something out there that I'm even better at that I enjoy even more than what I already know.

[1] https://shta.org

It depends on the perspective. If you spend your time learning, doing new things... That is incredibly enriching for the individual. However, those experiences are usually made possible by others. If you venture to do these things, create new stuff, only to have it trashed or never see the light of day, should it ever have been created at all? Things happen and projects fail that is true. But my goals are to ensure that the things I learn and apply can give back to the community and lessen the suffering of others. If I learn things and keep them to myself, they may as well not be learned at all.

"What's the point?"

The point is that I get still acquire new technical skills and parts of (failed) projects might be challenging and interesting, even though complete project don't result in success (in business meaning). For other points see my response to a sibling comment.

Fair enough. I guess it also depends on how far the projects actually get before they get canned. I assume part of my problem is that I was always working on my projects alone or nearly alone (from a technical contributor perspective), so customer feedback was the only way I was going to get any input on the code I'd produced.

Coincidentally, I was also an embedded dev.

> And figuring out how to ship an MVP is the least important part, so if that's all you're learning you're missing out on what will make you successful at a place that's actually successful.

That's actually a very important part and many projects don't even make it that far. This is an extremely valuable skill to have, the actual running of a company beyond that point is a lot simpler and interesting. Don't underestimate this capability you have.

> the actual running of a company beyond that point is a lot simpler

I respectfully disagree. I think that the problem of maintaining a project in the field, providing support, taking feedback and making improvements, and managing a pipeline of new developments alongside sustaining efforts is just as difficult of a problem as getting to an MVP. Both sides take vastly different skillsets, and require people with very different backgrounds to compromise and shift in leadership.

That said, I completely agree with your point that the skills of getting an MVP out the door is significant and worthwhile. I know I am on that side of things myself - I enjoy the initial development, brainstorming, hard work, and hard choices that come along with that piece of a project. I jus think that the other side of the coin deserves equal representation.

> Plus, I'll just generally disagree with you, sitting there making stuff that falls right into the garbage can is incredibly depressing. What's the point?

The sad thing is when you get old enough you start seeing even the successful projects you worked on show up in the 25-cent bin at Goodwill. (Maybe not so literally anymore, since software isn't bought in boxes, but you get the picture.)

> What's the point?

Earning a paycheck. Getting passionate about coding at a company is setting yourself up for disappointment. Save the passion for your personal stuff, or start your own company.

What is the point? It is fun. You know there are monks who create and paintings, and then immediately destroy them... What is the point?

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