why we can’t have good things

Two scenarios.

Dev: “I can either do this the more secure way which will take me 3 hours to set up and test, or I can just do it this less secure way that is already in place which will take me 5 minutes. Which would you like to pay me to do?”

And…

Dev: “Here’s a quick mock-up of what your website will look like. This is functional, but not all the protections and back-end work is done yet.”

Stakeholder: “This looks great! Perfect! Don’t touch anything, this is how it should be.”

Dev: “Wait, this isn’t done, this is just the really quick-and-dirty version.”

Stakeholder: “Nope, don’t change anything else. This looks perfect!”

Dev: “But it’s not done.”

Stakeholder: “That’s ok, I already have your time earmarked for other tasks that don’t look done yet. If we can blast through this, we’ll impress the client and they’ll be happier.”

Dev: “But…”

Stakeholder: “If the client isn’t asking for it, stop putting time into it!”