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thfuran | on: #43125981
>When people say “users don’t care about your tech stack,” what they really mean is that product quality doesn’t matter.

No, it means that product quality is all that matters. The users don't care how you make it work, only that it works how they want it to.

jeltz | parent | next
I have never seen it used like that. I have always seen it used like parent said: to justify awful technical choices which hurt the user.

I have written performant high quality products in weird tech stacks where performance can be s bit tricky to get: Ruby, PL/PgSQL, Perl, etc. But it was done by a team who cared a lot about technology and their tech stack. Otherwise it would not have been possible to do.

JohnFen | root | parent | next
This is a genuinely fascinating difference in perception to me. I don't remember ever hearing it used in the way you have. I've always heard it used to point out that devs often give more focus on what tools they use than they do on what actually matters to their customers.
jbreckmckye | root | parent | next
There are developers who care about tech and not about product. They build toys.

There are developers who care about product and not about tech. They build things that just barely work.

There are developers who care about both. They build the stuff people remember.

ludwik | root | parent
I have often heard it used to create a (false) impression that the choice of tools does not affect things that matter to customers - effectively silencing valid concerns about the consequences of a particular technical choice. It is often framed in the way you suggest, but the actual context and the intended effect of the phrase are very different from that framing.
kube-system | root | parent | next
TFA uses the phase that way.

> What truly makes a difference for users is your attention to the product and their needs.

> Learn to distinguish between tech choices that are interesting to you and those that are genuinely valuable for your product and your users.

v3xro | root | parent | next
Would like to echo this. I've seen this used to justify extracting more value from the user rather than spending time doing things that you can't ship next week with a marketing announcement.
bdcravens | root | parent | next
I've also seen it used when discussing solutions that aren't stack pure (for instance, whether to stick with the ORM or write a more performant pure SQL version that uses database-engine specific features)
jasonlotito | root | parent
> I have never seen it used like that.

Then you need to read more, because that's what it means. The tech stack doesn't matter. Only the quality of the product. That quality is defined by the user. Not you. Not your opinion. Not your belief. But the user of the product.

> which hurt the user.

This will self correct.

Horrible tech choices have lead to world class products that people love and cherish. The perfect tech choices have lead to things people laugh at and serve as a reminder that the tech stack doesn't matter, and in fact, may be a red flag.

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