Do Developers Tend to Scrap or Ship Their First Drafts?

theodp writes: "Writers rework their ideas, revise, and complete many drafts before publishing a piece," reminds Erika Nichols-Frazer in How to Help with Rough Drafts. "This is important to emphasize to students, that everybody starts somewhere and puts a lot of work into the final product, that it won’t be perfect (or even close!) the first time around, or maybe the second or third."

The necessity of multiple drafts may be an idea that's drilled into children's minds by teachers and parents, but in 2023 there's still a need to remind software engineers to Throw Away Your First Draft of Your Code. "The next time you start on a major project," advises Nicole Tietz-Sokolskaya, "I want you to write code for a couple of days and then delete it all. Just throw it away. I'm serious. And you should probably have some of your best engineers doing this throwaway work. It's going to save you time in the long run."

While Tietz-Sokolskaya's advice echoes that of Ernest Hemingway ("the first draft of anything is shit"), do developers tend to scrap or ship their first drafts in the real world?