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Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

You make good points and I tend to agree with you.

On the other hand I remember on some projects there being real (HUGE) pushback from the client about doing anything that wasn't implementing features exactly as they define and "are paying for".

As soon as you declare that you are doing something "optional", it gets political, people start talking about it, it escalates to project manager, their bosses boss etc and the shitfight starts. Ugh.

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Yup I guess what I was describing was more of an ideal software development environment, but fully recognize that there are many cases where being too transparent can cause issues. Hopefully those projects paid well, at least, to make up for all the frustration. :)

The best general strategy may be simply "tit for tat". Try going the high road first; if you see positive reaction, keep at it; if you see dysfunctional reaction (like parent here had), revert to doing it without asking for permission.

> implementing features exactly as they define and "are paying for".

The reason they're paying so much for it is that you didn't do the refactoring last time. Every time they refuse a refactor, all their future costs genuinely go up.

If they ask why the refactor is needed, why you didn't do it properly first time round: “You're constantly refining your business processes to satisfy ever-changing business needs; that's what I need to do to the code.”

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