I'm in an environment where the work consist of multiple streams. There are long running tasks, major features that can go for months, require multiple rounds of review and approval, and a sustained amp of back-and-forth. Then there are smaller ones that are typically accomplishable within a typical iteration time period. And then you have hot fixes, security or emergency changes.
These all have separate QA, integration, and release timelines that can -- and often do -- change during the process. As a result, what goes into any given release is sometimes being changed almost right up until we hit the button. Having the ability to roll a release branch from different feature branches and not get miscellaneous work from things that aren't ready is important.
Now, this could also be done with clever use of feature flags, but the platform doesn't play nicely with that concept. Plus, then there would be the work of going back and removing them or leaving in place a mess of conditional statements littered around.
Doing it in version control is architecturally simpler, integrates better with our task and version management tools and is easier to standardize on. There is a cost in how to handle merge conflicts, but that is manageable and can be offset by good task planning and careful work. And the occasional reset
Building a UI is fairly simple, all things considered. Building a full-scale system? Much harder. Deploying it so it can be multi-user? Maintaining it? These are things that separate toys from products.
The good part about OpenClaw: once you wire it up to connect to your important information it can do a lot of cool things. The bad part about OpenClaw: in order for it to do cool things you have to worry it up to your important information. Therein lies the challenge, to make it useful it needs to be connected, but being connected means that there is now a single point of failure or compromise. And unless you're extremely sophisticated, you are the mercy of the provider to guarantee that nothing bad happens. OpenClaw does not do this. In fact, I would say they do the very opposite of it, they declaim any responsibility or attempt to make it secure. Leaking API keys? Check. Allowing malicious plugins? Check. Being insecure by default? Check and check.
I'm no Apple fan, but they aren't in the business of foisting pleasantly packaged footguns on their customers.
To be fair, re-creating the SaaS solution that simply replicates the features they see can often be done fairly simply. However, there are generally a whole lot of things under the surface. Then there is the whole hosting and maintaining the system, which is its own problem.
These all have separate QA, integration, and release timelines that can -- and often do -- change during the process. As a result, what goes into any given release is sometimes being changed almost right up until we hit the button. Having the ability to roll a release branch from different feature branches and not get miscellaneous work from things that aren't ready is important.
Now, this could also be done with clever use of feature flags, but the platform doesn't play nicely with that concept. Plus, then there would be the work of going back and removing them or leaving in place a mess of conditional statements littered around.
Doing it in version control is architecturally simpler, integrates better with our task and version management tools and is easier to standardize on. There is a cost in how to handle merge conflicts, but that is manageable and can be offset by good task planning and careful work. And the occasional reset
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