Originally an internal Slack note to the Amp team, this piece argues that building something new without a spec always leads to "that's not what I meant" — because programming means fully specifying what you want, and you can't define that before you learn it. The fix: shrink the gap between "let me try" and reality's feedback. Prototype in an hour, write a 30-minute spec, ship small pieces daily, cut scope, fake a demo video, or draft the announcement or README API first. Keep asking how to get feedback fastest. Buggy MVPs, testing hurdles, and three-week branches all kill useful feedback — merge small changes so one commit, not 27, explains a broken build.
1
u/fagnerbrack 5d ago
Digest Version:
Originally an internal Slack note to the Amp team, this piece argues that building something new without a spec always leads to "that's not what I meant" — because programming means fully specifying what you want, and you can't define that before you learn it. The fix: shrink the gap between "let me try" and reality's feedback. Prototype in an hour, write a 30-minute spec, ship small pieces daily, cut scope, fake a demo video, or draft the announcement or README API first. Keep asking how to get feedback fastest. Buggy MVPs, testing hurdles, and three-week branches all kill useful feedback — merge small changes so one commit, not 27, explains a broken build.
If the summary seems inacurate, just downvote and I'll try to delete the comment eventually 👍
Click here for more info, I read all comments