zlacker

>>todsac+(OP)
Not a huge Steve Jobs fanboy, but I always liked his quote[1] about craftsmanship, sweating the details, and giving a fuck:

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”

I think software as a whole suffers greatly from this "well, I got it barely done, technically fulfilling the requirements, so my work is over" attitude.

1: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/445621-when-you-re-a-carpen...

>>ryandr+n4
I appreciate this analogy, but Jobs made this work by creating a leadership culture that was obsessed with quality and craftsmanship. By all accounts he would regularly refuse to ship hardware and software that wasn't up to his standards and fired people for not building things to the right specifications. In contrast, most of us work in organizations with the exact opposite leadership mentality, namely "get your work done as quickly as possible so we can sell more product, and fudge whatever you have to to make it through quality testing unscathed".

>>quacke+Z4
The best reason to do great work as much as you can is intrinsic satisfaction you get from that.

Also, think longer-term: if you can program well enough, then you can write great software quickly which is a huge asset when making your own thing and selling it.

It is quite rational to optimize for your own wellbeing in these ways even in orgs that are not fully conducive to long term careers.

>>mattgr+Fk
Yup.

For so many reasons, from a mentor of mine:

Quality Is It's Own Excuse.

If you can do it better, do it better.