nhashem, wow you really hit the nail on the head. So accurate it's scary. I too, thought I was the only one who put DOING before "ramping up and learning some stuff so that I can maybe do some things a few weeks from now." And of course Pud for the courage to be honest about how he's working.
So many times in startups and new endeavors, getting things out is far more important than doing it "right". It's stinky, but it's a reality. If your checkbook, bills and time say one thing but your code says another, your checkbook/bills/time win - always. And the person who can pump out more working (working, not necessarily pretty/proper code-wise or stack-wise) apps wins (even if they lose, they win, based on odds - more attempts means more possible chances at winning).
It's interesting to me that you thought you were the only one who put doing before ...learning, for lack of a better word - from what I can tell, the trendy thing at the moment (besides all the trendy technologies) is to spurn design, best practices, and maintainability in favor of doing things in the stinky, realistic, checkbook and bills friendly manner. At least if you're judging solely based on articles and comments that get upvoted on HN. It's a constant pendulum between "right" and "quick", which makes me think the answer is almost certainly somewhere in the middle. Honestly, it makes me wary of being a customer of startups currently, if everyone is just trying to get to version 1 as quickly as possible without any consideration for the future, so I hope that attitude is not as widely spread as it appears to be.
Really you should only be worried if you're using version 1 apps. I'm a fan of quick prototyping and quick release (in alpha/beta, of course), as long as the team is committed to putting the time in on the back-end. Getting a product out is an important step 1...the real work (and money) is in steps 2-1000.
This made me lol while taking a swig of my lemonade...point for you ;p
"I'm so glad I spent so much time on Hacker News."
...ok, not a constructive reply other than: laughter generates beneficial chemicals in the brain and it's good to be good to others...thanks! carry on. :)
imo this is key: "Basically we were told, when you're done talking, stop, and don't let that pause goad you into say something stupid." And, unfortunately, something I'm still working on.
If anyone is interested, this is a great book for the hobbyist curious about this sort of thing: "The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality" by Brian Greene
Yea, that's going to continue to be the case until someone (cough us, cough) figures out that what you look at or buy on one occasion might not actually be something you're interested in. Specifically speaking of //items//, this is really a huge issue that is so huge that it's almost become laughable in the sense that nearly all the recommendations via "machine learning" (Collaborative Filtering, Trust Systems, etc) nowadays end up being so tainted that they are worthless - to you, and to the companies spitting them out. I call it "Recommendation Blindness" (copyright 2008...20% on usage...etc...etc..sue you..etc.....I'm just kidding of course).
So many times in startups and new endeavors, getting things out is far more important than doing it "right". It's stinky, but it's a reality. If your checkbook, bills and time say one thing but your code says another, your checkbook/bills/time win - always. And the person who can pump out more working (working, not necessarily pretty/proper code-wise or stack-wise) apps wins (even if they lose, they win, based on odds - more attempts means more possible chances at winning).