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I’ve used both approaches and I can’t disagree more. Writing code first might feel faster but it isn’t. It’s great for surface level issues but just muddies the waters for any consequential feature.

Measure(communicate) twice, cut(build) once.

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IMO this is very dependent on the risk of cutting once, so to speak. I'd imagine that at PostHog, the idea is there's little risk of cutting many times - iterating - and more damage is done by the measuring taking far too long.

This is true but there is another cost. If you carelessly write you can end up with a system which is a mountain of bandaid fixes; an incoherent and unmaintainable mess.

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