[kintamanimatt]

I can understand what dllthomas is talking about. I'd never write a full-blown prototype, but whenever I'm writing a non-trivial app for myself it can be quite productive to write 10% of the app, throw that away, and start again. This strategy always gives me a better understanding of the problem, the app's architecture and so on, as well as a ton of new ideas.

[dllthomas]

Right, that's pretty much what I was talking about. Not so much something "officially blessed as a prototype" but "does this make sense at all?" experimentation shy of an MVP. I've heard "write it, throw it away, rewrite it" attributed to Knuth, and while that's overstating it a little you definitely learn things in your first attempt.

[leoc]

Fred Brooks, maybe?

> The management question, therefore, is not whether to build a pilot system and throw it away. You will do that. […] Hence plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow.

But as someone on Ward's Wiki said http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PlanToThrowOneAway ,

> The corollary to this is that if you plan to throw one away, you will end up throwing away two.

[dllthomas]

Yeah, I've seen that one too. Could very well be memetically related (through Knuth or not).