Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

FinnLobsien

Re: GitHub.

IF they do a rewrite, that should buy us at least 5 years, based on my experience with large-scale rewrites lol

View on HN

Even with AI?

In that case, it'll only take 8 years.

We need a new 80/20 rule. I propose a 90/0. You get 90% done quickly and the other 0% over the next few years .

We actually already have one of those, and it still fits just for a different reason:

> The first 90% is easy/fast/cheap, it's the second 90% that's hard/slow/expensive

Since most of the generative approaches treat code as disposable, then the second (and subsequent) 90% approaches just throw it away and start over. It's like all the awesome parts about a rewrite, with all the awesome parts about "it was rewritten because no one understood it"

I always heard it as "The first 90% of the work takes the first 90% of the time, the remaining 10% of the work takes the other 90% of the time." But yeah.

Ha! I've never heard of that one

Reply on news.ycombinator.com