I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it
I read this article looking forward to the complex bespoke code to be ripped out and deleted - but the author clearly grew as an engineer in a way I didn’t expect:<p>&gt; Sometimes that’s just how it is. The devops saying “Cattle, not pets” is apt here: code (and by proxy, the products built with that code) is cattle. It does a job for you, and when that job is no longer useful, the code is ready to be retired. If you treat the code like a pet for sentimental reasons, you’re working in direct opposition to the interests of the business.<p>A lot of code is fun to write. A lot of problems are fun to solve. But a business, especially a startup, needs to stay razor focused. My entire career is effectively to sit in meetings and tell young, passionate engineers not to build things. It’s a bit depressing, but it’s also vital.<p>A good engineer can solve any problem with clever code. A great engineer knows what problems aren’t really problems and probably an XLS download link updated daily would have been fine.