Fuck it, ship it. | Hacker News Reader

Fuck it, ship it.

blog.opbeat.com

57 pointsroncohen27 comments

We realized that we were already using Opbeat to operate Opbeat! Actually we had been doing so for quite some time. It seems crazy that we’d forgotten the fact that Opbeat was already helping us.

So they discover the concept of eating your own dog food

No, they realized their dog food was edible.

Since when does a private, invitation-only beta count as "shipping"?

It depends what you're working on.

If it's a weekend Flash game, fair enough. If it's a payment processor, and real customers are going to make or lose real money, that would absolutely count.

Hosted web operations seems like it's more in the second camp than the first. If their product has bugs and starts trashing backup servers, there's going to be hell to pay.

Still, write about it when we can actually go try it out.

How about "Fuck yeah! Ship that bad boy!"?

To me, "fuck it" has a defeatist connotation that really has no place around something that you are proud of.

Can't you ship it unfucked?

I know cursing to emphasize your point is the popular thing now days, but I read it literally too.

It's not as much fun.

Fuck it, product announcement.

In a sense, this goes in line with "release early, release often". I get that it's a big step to actually release a software or service, but the more you wait, the more you risk actually defining the product too much, or missing the boat completely while someone else takes the prize. I think even a service that is somewhat prone to errors can be released as long as it's made clear that it is, and that it's at least decently functional. And it is, of course, absolutely imperative that an easy to reach and easy to use feedback system be put in place.

Coming from a poker background, ship it has the connotation of "shipping the pot" or winning the pot. Oftentimes players will yell "SHIP ITTTTT!!!" when they have won a large pot. This gives this phrase a little more positive connotation for me.

Cool poster but I imagine clients would be turned off a bit by that mentality.

I am also an advocate of releasing early as that will help you getting some feedback from the users. Of course you need to reach a certain point in order to do that. Also like the poster.

Also known as "Fuck it, support it forever or burn bridges!"

Fuck it ship it! I find these short motivational posts quite nice. It just feels good reading stuff like this. Like a hackers feel good article.

Awesome poster. Please put it up for sale somewhere!

Fuck it, steal it!

Funny I thought the same thing. "Fuck it, piratebay it!" I guess TPB stole the ship image from common culture...

When we put it up in the office some people thought it said "Fuck it, sail it." ;)

Even if it's not a CC image, the pirate bay are probably the least likely people in the world to sue.

It's an image by Scott Foresman (the company) and released into the public domain: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Galleon_(PSF).png

I didn't mean stealing from any particular entity. It was more in a "nabbing" sort of way, a little like saying "The Beatles stole the heart of many of a generation's women". They obviously weren't pulling hearts out of teenagers :)

What is opbeat?

Haha, did you just reference the "smells like updawg in here" joke?

No, I still have no idea what opbeat is, what they do, and why I would want to beta test their service.

Wow, "Opbeat" sounds awfully close to "Chartbeat". In fact, I'd assume Opbeat was another product by Chartbeat if I didn't know any better -- especially given the chart graphics they use.

IANAL, but should they be worried about trademark infringement? Seems like a risky name to choose.

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