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Comment by mattmanser | Hacker News Reader

Look. I've worked in enterprise software.

You sound like you did it all wrong.

That you think that 'Version control was non existent' is bizarre is just, well, naive.

Why did your clients need version control? Was your code not extensible?

You do the install. You sell a support contract. You make it extensible in a repeatable, not modifying the core code, kind of way. You have tools to find out if the client has modified parts of the code they shouldn't have.

A bug pops up, you fix it locally. You then log in to their instance. You deploy the fix.

That's how it works.

That's where you went wrong.

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It sounded to me like the legal firms wanted to do the formal code review themselves, independently.

How much of the software they run do they do their own code reviews on? That sounds weird (not impossible, just weird).

I imagine it's the only way lawyers could off-set liabilities onto someone else if something else ever did happen where confidential information was breached - and they'd be the best ones to know.

The lawyers I worked with years ago never even thought to ask for code reviews of WordPerfect, and later MS Office or Windows. And they sure as hell knew they had 0 chance of suing MS should anything ever go wrong.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I wish the process for updating or releasing fixes was as easy as logging into their instance and deploying the fix. We were never allowed near their servers. No ssh, no in-house install, nothing. The instructions for installing LogicPull were documented and then sent off. We were pretty much in the dark the entire time, and there was no way around it.

I haven't looked at the source but I did try the online demo and I too do not understand how upgrades/bug fixes would be so problematic. Or why specific branching for individual customers would be required.

Since LogicPull was conceived to be a SAAS, I can see how certain design decisions may have been overlooked that would make supporting a self hosted solution a lot easier. I also think a lot of people who have never worked in an enterprise environment, do not fully understand how customizable a solution has to be. Politics, quality control standards, etc. all play a role and your solution has to be able to adapt. Unless you are in a position like IBM, Microsoft, etc., where you can advocate certain ways of working, your solution really has to be insanely flexible. And if you take this into consideration, you'll design your solution accordingly.

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