Crisp's Blog is written by consultants at Swedish firm Crisp on agile, product discovery, kanban, and technical debt.
HN links it for Henrik Kniberg's Spotify scaling model, which commenters criticize as hard to apply, plus MVP and kanban posts.
I'm not against JavaScript (or any other languages running in the browser for that matter). Ironically, when I started doing this I was a full time frontend dev.
For me this was just a "hack" to significantly improve my browsing experience. While I'm not advocating people doing the same, I disagree with the sentiment that absolutely everything is an app and static documents being an archaic concept.
One of my gripe is with people claiming that the absolute priority is the user and their experience, while all they really care about is conversion numbers and how quickly the devs can churn out new features.
And the other aspect is the same why I don't like this image so popular with product managers
https://blog.crisp.se/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Making-sense-of-MVP-.jpg
While I do get and agree with the main point they are making, the image also implies that the more complex a product is, the better. But a car is not inherently better, more useful than a bicycle. The latter will outperform it in many use cases.
I see it the same with websites/apps. If you are building an browser based photoshop alternative, by all means throw all the shiny tools and frameworks at it, I'm willing to let it load a little and I'm not expecting it to work blazingly fast on a 50$ phone and a spotty 3G connection. But for a textual content based website, maybe consider letting the user just hop on and get going.
And I do think framework independent web components are the way to go for this…
I've been a subscriber to Google Play Music for a few years, initially I think my choice rested on being able to upload from my personal library, which was more significant back in the days when there was much less parity in music service catalogs - this was circa no Beatles. Then they added the youtube tie in where you don't get youtube ads - very valuable. I agree with the general UI complaint, it isn't great. To add to the crit, the branding is weak - 'Spotify' is meaningful, 'Play' is not. Despite all that, I've decided $100/yr for music on demand and no youtube ads is a good deal for me.
I tried Spotify a couple years ago and the experience was terrible and I haven't been back. I don't recall exactly: there was tons of hype, I had to download and run an installer, then create an account and validate email, and then I could play a song, so I picked a song and got some audio ads and subsequent more ads and suggested songs that were not at all related to the song I picked. It wasn't just not good enough to get me to switch, the onboarding was repellent.
I probably won't be their customer but I'm happy to see them succeed for a variety of reasons: customers love it, they aren't FAMGA, and that slide deck on their organizational squads and tribes [1] was significant in my work life.
[1]: https://blog.crisp.se/2012/11/14/henrikkniberg/scaling-agile-at-spotify
There are some typical things that apply to just about any software project that you can try.
Avoid feature creep by writing down the exact list of things you need to do, and if you come up with more ideas, put them on a separate list.
Try to build a Minimum Viable Product, which is a vertical slice of the most minimal version of your product that works.[1] If that doesn't work out, build some feature-complete tech demos and refactor them into an MVP.
Find a friend to help you with it. A fresh pair of eyes can help you validate your project and see what you could be doing better!
Experiencing friction means you're learning. Too much friction, however, can burn you. Don't burn out. Take a break. If you find yourself feeling unable to finish a task today, either try a different task on the todo list, or do something that relaxes you instead. Worrying about when you'll finish won't get you any further, nor will pushing yourself past your limit.
Best of luck in your endeavor!
1: http://blog.crisp.se/2016/01/25/henrikkniberg/making-sense-of-mvp (has a really nice infographic that might help you understand!)
P.S. It's okay to fail. Fail forward.
I still build out everything required to realise the vision, and that usually takes at least months to build.
There's an analogy in startups that you should build a great skateboard first if your vision is to build a better car, but I just don't agree.
If you have a vision for a better car then you need to deliver a better car, not a skateboard, because, well a skateboard just isn't a car. https://blog.crisp.se/2016/01/25/henrikkniberg/making-sense-of-mvp
If my idea is to create a business for sharing cars, but it's cheaper and quicker to build a business where local kids drive you around on their pushbikes, I just don't see that as being the same. Those who argue for skateboards versus cars would say "well you are solving the problem of rental transport and starting in a practical way". Meh.
The other thing I think is important is not to waste the initial attention for your product on something that is not in fact the true vision of what you had in mind.
But so far I haven't succeeded so my philosophy can't be given much credence.
The Spotify model is about how people are arranged. It has nothing to do with development methodology or work tracking. From the whitepaper introducing the Spotify model (https://blog.crisp.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SpotifyScaling.pdf):
> [Squads] are a self-organizing team and decide their own way of working – some use Scrum sprints, some use Kanban, some use a mix of these approaches.
It can be difficult to do the guild structure in such a small organization. Not impossible but difficult, as many different people tend to play a diverse set of roles.
At least, that's how it's been in my career. Prove me wrong!
Edit: here's a classic from Spotify, which is much larger but potentially relevant: https://blog.crisp.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SpotifyScaling.pdf