The Duct Tape Programmer and Shipping *is* a Feature

The always astute Joel Spolsky talking about the book Coders at Work. Zeroes in on a interview with Joel Zawinski and the avoidance of technical fancy-pantsedness. Love this quote from Zawinski when asked about his pet peeve for over-engineering:

‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘At the end of the day, ship the fucking thing! It’s great to rewrite your code and make it cleaner and by the third time it’ll actually be pretty. But that’s not the point—you’re not here to write code; you’re here to ship products.’

Shipping is a feature. A 50%-good solution that people actually have solves more problems and survives longer than a 99% solution that nobody has because it’s in your lab where you’re endlessly polishing the damn thing.