My 5 Favorite Web Development Fallacies

Feb 23, 2022

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a fallacy is:

"an idea that a lot of people think is true but is in fact false." Cambridge Dictionary.

Inspired by The Eight Fallacies of Distributed Computing, I decided to make my own list of fallacies in web development.

These are my top 5:

They are not the only ones I have experienced. But the most obvious ones that should make us think and they don’t.

Change my mind with a DM on Twitter or mention me with a tweet. I’d love this to be a discussion and update this page every week.

Bonus Tracks

I made a pretty long list of fallacies for this article. It would be a shame to lose others I liked but didn’t make it to the top 5. Here they are.

All requirements are clear.
Any developer can replace any other developer.
Here is the MVP.
The MVP is a full-fletched application with more features than competitors w/ multiple years in the market.
We work with Agile Methodology, but we want this by this date so we can go live.
Developers code eight hours per day.
There is a right way to do things.
Automated tests means no bugs.
Time to write tests is taken in consideration.
Agile development means fast development.
The prototype will be thrown away.
Code Reviews means clean code.
Testing is taken into account in the estimations.
Given a UI framework, building a new page is fast.
Easy and fast are the same.
You will see in time that you don't make it in time.
Devs only need a few minutes for reporting.
A static design is enough handover from design.
Developers are just Oompa Loompas.
Development is like building a building.
Error handling is done in every task.
Automated tests are taken care of in every task.
Each feature is fully detailed.

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Don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions or see an error. I highly appreciate it.

And thanks to JC, Miquel and Yusef for reviewing this article 🙏