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 don’t know what fictional carpenters Jobs was talking about. Real carpenters need to be pragmatic and cost effective to stay competitive in the market.

Using expensive wood or spending time doing things nobody will see will lower your throughout and raise your costs unnecessarily for the customer.

Even a master carpenter has finite time and money. Every morcel of time spent doing things nobody can see is time not spent doing other things with more visibility. The masters are still competing with other masters in a globally competitive market.

So Job’s fictional carpenter would get outcompeted by the hypothetical free market where carpenters of equal skill are producing more at lower cost.

>>j7ake+bh
It depends on the target market. If I were making furniture aimed at the wealthy, you better believe that every piece of wood in it will be high quality -- and the price I charge would reflect that. If I were making furniture for normal people, price is a greater concern and appropriate tradeoffs must be made.

Apple, during the Jobs days anyway, produced luxury goods for a luxury price. Given the market they were addressing, Job's comments make complete sense.

>>JohnFe+Wj
I think every carpenter wishes they could make furniture exclusively for the wealthy and famous. But they have to compete with all the other carpenters at similar skill level for their business.

Making furniture with features that no one can see except the carpenter is a disadvantage compared to the same carpenter who focuses their time making more their furniture more visually appealing to their customers.

Everyone seems to forget that Apple was nearly bankrupt in the 90s because no one was willing to pay so much for their product when Microsoft did it cheaper and similar quality (from the users perspective).

>>j7ake+nn
>I think every carpenter wishes they could make furniture exclusively for the wealthy and famous. But they have to compete with all the other carpenters at similar skill level for their business.

I guess the metaphor applies here too. Some will take that pride and rise up. Some will take that pride and fall behind despite being equally qualified as the ones who rose. Others will coast along and make stable business.

I think where the metaphor breaks down is visibility. Sure, that cheap plywood isn't normally visible, but a customer who looks will find it. very few iphone consumers have the skills to find bad code and fewer care as long as it does what it is intended. It's probably more akin to selling hot dogs than selling a chair.