Originally Posted By: JBjorgen
Some companies just don't have the capital to sit on their product with no sales while they spend the 50% of the time that it takes to do that last 10% of fit and finish, even if they want to. Sometimes it's just simple economics that dictate that they release early and often as they get things fixed/polished so they can have a revenue stream.


I know all about this- as right now we are about to ship a product that is FAR short on the functionality we were supposed to deliver (un-realistic expectations, I'm afraid). However, what's in there works, and if there are bugs (I'm certain there will be) we will fix them and they will not be difficult to fix.

Having that 10% hanging out there in front of the customer can destroy the credibility the 90% that works correctly has earned. Every time we develop a feature, we make sure all known outstanding bugs are fixed before considering it "done". I think this is important, because in my experience that last 10% often ends up being the last 90%, but you don't know it until you try to make it work. I can't count the number of times I've heard "I've just got one more thing and I'm done with this"- and then I keep hearing about problems encountered for the next two week.
_________________________
-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.