Are Feature Flags for Unfinished Features a Good Practice in Production?

I get your points, but remember that feature flags should mainly be maintained and cleaned up after use. If properly managed, the benefits of using them—like gradual rollouts and testing in production—greatly surpass the maintenance overhead. Plus, you can use environment variables for easy toggling.

This practice is common among big tech companies and can be really useful. It allows for smoother releases, especially when frontend and backend elements aren't aligned. You don't have to wrap every bit of code; just the entry point needs to be conditionally checked. Plus, with feature flags, if you spot a regression in production, you can quickly disable that feature while you investigate, which is a major plus.

I see where you're coming from, but the advantages of feature flags are substantial. They allow early testing for QA and feedback from stakeholders. Also, toggling features on and off based on real usage without code changes is super handy. The alternative—waiting until everything is perfectly ready—could lead to missed opportunities in delivering value quickly.

Using feature flags is essential for development at scale. They make it easier to work on overlapping features and help with continuous integration. You can deploy code guarded by a flag, so you have the option to roll things back without reverting to earlier code. It's not just about hiding work; it’s also about managing risks effectively.

Feature flags are definitely a game-changer! They let you test features in non-production environments and integrate seamlessly with the rest of the code during development. Sure, it adds a few more `if` statements, but cleaning them up later is much easier compared to the risks of introducing unfinished code without any toggle. The benefits far outweigh the initial hassle.