[spencerwgreene]

Nothing in the post is wrong, but there's an anti-pattern where teams resist change, the software ossifies, and people cite these mantras like "slow is smooth and smooth is fast", when in reality the users just want new features shipped on the order of weeks/months, not quarters/years. Users eventually lose patience, leave or fork the code or solve their problem differently, and route around the team that doesn't get stuff done.

[rglover]

You're right and I'd argue that the approach I'm suggesting in this post gets your delivery schedule more aligned with weeks/months than with quarters/years.

What we have now produces quarters/years delays (and in a lot of cases, an inevitable throwing up of the hands to move on to the next disaster/panic). It's paradoxical, certainly, but the Tortoise and the Hare is one of the most accurate fables ever written (why I keep a little tortoise figurine on my desk).

Older generations understood this and go figure, the world was far more stable. We sold that out in favor of speed and quick profit and now we're in for a serious roller coaster ride. And for what? The illusion of having moved faster in the present at the expense of stability in the future.