Move Fast and Abandon Things

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Abandoning Projects vs. Finishing Them

  • Some read the article as “normalizing abandonment” and see that as wasteful; they stress learning by finishing things.
  • Others argue this is a misreading: the point is rapid prototyping, early discovery of fatal flaws, and rejecting sunk-cost fallacy.
  • Several note that “finishing” is its own hard skill; one strategy is to deliberately choose very small projects to practice completion.
  • A few suggest “resolution” or explicit closure (deciding something is done or dropped) matters more than literal completion.

Value of Experimentation and Play

  • Many defend abandoned projects as R&D: you learn techniques, reuse code/assets later, or discover better designs.
  • Examples include glassblowing experiments, gameplay simplifications that improved UX, and revisiting old code to add accessibility.
  • Some see joy and “time you enjoy wasting” as intrinsically worthwhile, especially for creative and artistic goals.

Personal Scope, Constraints, and Retro Development

  • Several commenters emphasize shrinking scope to avoid burnout and actually ship something.
  • Others praise limited platforms (old Macs, Playdate) and 1‑bit art: constraints spur creativity and make systems easier to reason about.
  • There’s nostalgia for earlier eras when solo devs could ship distinctive work without towering dependencies.

Organizational Practices, MVPs, and Tech Debt

  • At company scale, “move fast” is seen as riskier: MVPs often ship as production systems and accrue painful technical debt.
  • Some describe patterns where “rockstar” developers prototype and leave, while others inherit fragile code and long‑term maintenance.
  • Others defend MVPs as necessary to test market fit; the real failure is stopping at MVP and never hardening the system.
  • Several call for a middle ground: real design phases plus iterative prototyping, willingness to throw away first drafts, and strong ownership.

UBI and Creative Output (Tangent)

  • One subthread links abandoned personal projects to broader questions of basic income and time for self‑directed work.
  • Supporters think UBI would unlock latent creativity and risk‑taking; critics foresee dependency, inflation, and social decay.
  • Participants cite mixed pandemic experiences as anecdotal evidence for both sides; overall impact is left as unclear.