[conspire] It shipped! ... Re: Dept. of Fsck It, Ship It: Cyberpunk 2077

[Michael Paoli]

Once upon a time ...

I had a coworker.  Got to hear bit of a story of something from a place
he once worked.  You see, the company where he worked at the time,
they had this big contract to ship a certain product by a very specific
date.  The were running behind, it wasn't working, wasn't complete,
horribly buggy.  Heck, often it didn't even compile, or wouldn't
fully compile.  Anyway, it was in horrible shape and ... that
contractual date came, and ...
Coworker(C) and a Manager(M) thereof, had a conversation about like this:
M: We shipped it.
C: Shipped, *what*?  It *wouldn't even compile*!

Dear knows what the hell they shipped, but they shipped *something*.
Maybe just grabbed a bunch of whatever bits had earlier compiled,
perhaps some (draft) documentation, etc., burned/pressed it to CD or
wrote it to tape and ... shipped it.
I'd guestimate the contract may have been lacking in functionality
specifications/requirements for initial shipment - or maybe those
penalty clauses weren't that big?  Perhaps it also had more about
support and fixing issues with any shipped product.  Who knows.

But hey, they shipped it, and on time!

> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: [conspire] Dept. of Fsck It, Ship It:  Cyberpunk 2077
> Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2020 19:29:48 -0800

> flog it, marketing promises went through the roof, but meanwhile the
> coding was in trouble and behind schedule.  Top management started
> bailing, tech employees were put under ever-greater pressure as the
> project slipped, it was delayed six months to Sept. 2020, then to
> November, then to December, remaining management panicked, and the buggy
> code was pushed out the door to make the Christmas season.
>
> And... oops.