The shittiest project I ever worked on (2013)
Having followed HN and similar dev culture (Dilbert etc.) for some time now, I feel a growing contradiction that I cannot fully resolve.On the one hand big corporations are presented as these incompetent behemoths that are locked in their internal petty office politics, managers are clueless as to what is being or should be developed, and tons of money is wasted, they are wooed by empty marketing etc.On the other hand these organizations are immensely wealthy and successful.It may actually be that they are right, and for non-tech-centered companies this whole software stuff is really peanuts and their mental energy is better spent on other business-related stuff. So they will come up with random low-effort comments on all sorts of details because ultimately they (rightly) don't care. What actually matters is to negotiate deals like referral fees, or coming up with other contract ideas that will bring a lot of revenue in.Or maybe it's just an equilibrium, a local optimum. You don't have to produce "good" stuff (in the developer's sense) without waste, precisely because the other company that you're targeting is also inefficient in similar ways.I'm really not sure but I think it's important to look beyond just "haha, stupid managers, they can't make up their mind". There must be deeper reasons.