[myoffe]

In many cases, especially in the early days of a startup, you can't even afford the 1/2 weeks to increase code quality, because you might not have a business by then. If you have a demo for a customer the next day, at that point software quality does not matter at all.

[mruts]

I mean, are there startups that have a demo a week or two after they are created? Because the article is saying that correct software is cheaper on every timescale past that.

[myoffe]

What I meant is that the closer you get to a delivery date, the more stress there is on you to "just make stuff work".

Most software projects that: 1) create business value, 2) are not trivial, and 3) have time constraints, reach a point where you have to just finish it, no matter the cost to code quality. I see it where I work. We have pretty good programmers, but sometimes we have to create debt intentionally because we know that's the way we'll make the deadline, and therefore impress customers, and therefore buy more time to write new features, and fix that debt.

[kiksy]

This makes sense, but -honestly- how often do you take the time to fix the debt? Or are you pushed for the next feature?

[estsauver]

Anecdote not data: We've have had 4/5 times in the last 3 years of our operation where we features that we launched in less than a week that were very important to launch.