Inessential: No ETAs

The problem with stating an ETA then, is that it sets up expectations. When you don’t meet them — and you won’t, most of the time — people sometimes get upset. Not everybody. But some people take ETA to mean “I promise to ship that day or damn close to it.”

So the better thing to do is plan which features go into which releases, and have a date for internal use for just the next release — and refrain from making public ETAs.

PS This is all just to say that app-making is nothing like building a house. It’s more like building the first house ever in the history of houses, with a pile of rusty nails and your bare hands, in a non-stop tornado. It’s different every time, and it’s astonishingly complex, non-linear, and unpredictable. We all do our best to mitigate this, to make it more regular, but the industry just hasn’t gotten very far with that yet. The only reason anything ever ships is because people just keep working until it’s ready.