--- title: Why Is Everything in Software Always 90% Done? | daily.dev description: An essay exploring why software projects seem perpetually '90% done', arguing that the final stretch of a project contains a disproportionate share of reality:... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-everything-in-software-always-90-done--bwqukhza4 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why Is Everything in Software Always 90% Done? | daily.dev og:description: An essay exploring why software projects seem perpetually '90% done', arguing that the final stretch of a project contains a disproportionate share of reality:... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-everything-in-software-always-90-done--bwqukhza4 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/BWQUKHZa4.png og:image:alt: Why Is Everything in Software Always 90% Done? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why Is Everything in Software Always 90% Done? **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 11 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An essay exploring why software projects seem perpetually '90% done', arguing that the final stretch of a project contains a disproportionate share of reality: edge cases, exception handling, rollback plans, documentation, and unglamorous reliability work. The piece contends that early project stages run on optimism and happy-path demos, while the last 10% forces teams to confront uncomfortable questions about ownership, failure modes, and what 'done' truly means. It also touches on how AI coding tools accelerate the first 90% but shift the real bottleneck to human judgment and review of generated code. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [“We Are 90% Done” Is the Most Expensive Sentence in Software Delivery](https://daily.dev/posts/we-are-90-done-is-the-most-expensive-sentence-in-software-delivery-oogko37h4) · Medium · 23 upvotes · 2 comments - [The Engineering Manager](https://daily.dev/posts/the-engineering-manager-iunymzylz) · Tech Lead Digest · 17 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding), [#technical-debt](https://daily.dev/tags/technical-debt) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-everything-in-software-always-90-done--bwqukhza4) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why Is Everything in Software Always 90% Done?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-everything-in-software-always-90-done--bwqukhza4","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-everything-in-software-always-90-done--bwqukhza4"},"datePublished":"2026-10-03T00:55:24.078Z","dateModified":"2026-10-03T00:56:30.827Z","description":"An essay exploring why software projects seem perpetually '90% done', arguing that the final stretch of a project contains a disproportionate share of reality:...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/1de29e50500629bd83b3d49396d03d62?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/1de29e50500629bd83b3d49396d03d62?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Medium","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Medium","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/medium","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-is-everything-in-software-always-90-done--bwqukhza4","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai-coding,technical-debt","timeRequired":"PT11M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Medium","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Why Is Everything in Software Always 90% Done?"}]} ```