GUIs are built at least 2.5 times

Software and GUIs Are Built Multiple Times

• Many agree that good software, especially GUIs, effectively gets built ~3 times:
  1. quick prototype to explore the problem,
  2. first “real” but naïve implementation,
  3. a rewrite once the team truly understands requirements and domain.
• Some add a “4th rewrite” joke (e.g., “now in Rust”) and reference ideas like “plan to throw one away” and second-system effect.
• Several note that with experience, steps 1 and 2 can partially compress, but never fully disappear.

Rewriting vs Incremental Change

• Product and project managers are reluctant to fund rewrites because past attempts often blew up schedules and budgets or failed outright.
• Developers counter that staying indefinitely in iteration #2 leads to huge maintenance costs, blocked features, and accumulating technical debt that also causes overruns.
• There’s tension between short-term “good enough” and long-term competitiveness and maintainability.

Agile, Lean, and Feedback Loops

• Some think the article misunderstands lean/Agile: these methods already assume you can’t know UX in advance and optimize for fast feedback and iteration.
• Others argue many organizations say “Agile” but behave like waterfall with sprints, still expecting fixed feature lists and “finished” software.
• Several emphasize extremely tight iteration loops with real users as the only reliable path to good UI/UX; early mockups and paper/Figma prototypes help but never replace testing the real thing.

UX, Domain Expertise, and Roles

• Good GUIs often come from domain experts building tools for themselves (e.g., finance, CAD, DAWs), not generic designers or programmers.
• GUIs frequently fail because:
  • devs, designers, spec-writers, and managers all misunderstand actual user workflows,
  • responsibility for UX is split across people who are each “bad at UX.”
• Proposed mitigations: semi-technical internal “champions” embedded in the user department, or strong product managers who truly understand both domain and tech.

Recurring GUI Problems and Opinions

• Many relate to the described cycle: pixel-perfect design → build to spec → everyone hates it → redesign → more churn → grudging “nobody loves it but nobody hates it.”
• Complaints include: oversimplified UIs for “average users,” flashy redesigns that worsen usability, and GUI toolkits that couple layout tightly to code, making iteration expensive.
• Others highlight the value of rough, ugly prototypes, heavy user feedback, and deferring visual polish until information architecture and flows are stable.

Tooling and Article Critique

• Figma and similar tools are praised for accelerating UI experiments before coding; some mention AI-generated throwaway UIs as a new kind of incidental prototype.
• Multiple commenters find the article itself hard to read, meandering, and sometimes confused about patterns and lean literature, even if they agree with the core “GUIs are built ≥2.5 times” insight.