[bmelton]

Most semi-competent developers can build SOMEthing in a weekend, but the trick is making something that actually works at scale, or works for more than a single user, or providing any kind of audit trail. In short, almost all weekend projects are a hack.

The big features that people like, the UI/UX polish that makes it easy to use, the scalable backend that lets it work under load -- those things aren't generally even considered for a weekend project.

That's not to say that there aren't some people who don't produce brilliance over a weekend, but it really is the exception, not the rule.