Continuous Learning

Today’s web clipping has a shipping theme to it.

Shipping Isn’t Enough

Instead of measuring by shipping code, true success only comes from having users.  And that means developers should do things outside of "coding".

A smart software developer knows that there’s no point in writing code if it’s code that nobody will see, code that nobody will use, code that nobody will ultimately benefit from. Why build a permanently vacant house?

…

Things like documentation, interaction design, cultivating user community, all the way up to the product vision itself. If you get that stuff wrong, it won’t matter what kind of code you’ve written.

Great point, and one often missed in many corporate environment where no one is empowered to do anything, as pointed out by Mike…

Shipping Is Enough, Sometimes

One should not focus their career just on having number of users, because many career opportunities cannot be measured by this criteria.

Working at up-and-coming places gives us much more input and the ability to try out our promotional skills, but at the cost of knowing ahead of time if they will be successful or not.

No matter what you decide, it benefits you to learn a little about promotion, marketing, and (especially) networking with other people, since these skills can only open up more chances for you to reach your potential.

Mike I think you are not talking so different from Jeff after all

Ship it, or Shut Up. When good products get bad…

Pre-announcing products is not a good strategy even if you can generate hype.

9 times from ten pre-announcing a product is setting yourself up for a fall. … As a general rule, "Let the arrival of your product create the hype, Apple can do it differently, but you are not Apple.".*

Good point. AFAIK Apple is not in the habit of pre-announcing product until they are ready to ship though