Let's take it out of the realm of software for a moment. Let's use the motorcycle metaphor, since this is a ZATAOMM thread.
At the end of the day, the customer does not care if, for example, you fixed their bike sloppyily, quickly, or haphazardly; as long as it works. It is the craftsman in us that makes us care about the nature of our work. It is something we ultimately do for ourselves.
Bullshit!
It is true that no customer is going to care how we organize our tools in the mechanics garage. We should not be having long arguments about whether 2 storage cabinets or one make more sense for holding our screwdrivers. If at the end of the day, the radiator is replaced in the same way, and the coolant is cycling correctly, then both the slow and steady and the quick and haphazard mechanics did a good job, however they accomplished this fact.
But the ENTIRE POINT of the book, is that these two mechanics WILL NOT accomplish the same job. Sure, they may both deliver the same result in 7 out of every 10 jobs they are given, but those last 3 matter! And are almost certainly going to be the hardest of the 10.
More direct to your point, however, customers ABSOLUTELY DO care whether we replace the radiator with a cheap chinese knockoff that's likely to break in 1k miles, or the 5x more expensive overseas german version. And they ABSOLUTELY do care if the haphazard mechanic or the slow thoughtful tedious one does the job.
They just don't all care equally. Some customers want the cheap chinese knockoff (the giant if-then conditional). If it doesn't work, they'll just throw away the bike and buy a new one. Other customers want the german and thoughtful mechanic, and will pay accordingly.
Let's take it out of the realm of software for a moment. Let's use the motorcycle metaphor, since this is a ZATAOMM thread.
At the end of the day, the customer does not care if, for example, you fixed their bike sloppyily, quickly, or haphazardly; as long as it works. It is the craftsman in us that makes us care about the nature of our work. It is something we ultimately do for ourselves.
Bullshit!
It is true that no customer is going to care how we organize our tools in the mechanics garage. We should not be having long arguments about whether 2 storage cabinets or one make more sense for holding our screwdrivers. If at the end of the day, the radiator is replaced in the same way, and the coolant is cycling correctly, then both the slow and steady and the quick and haphazard mechanics did a good job, however they accomplished this fact.
But the ENTIRE POINT of the book, is that these two mechanics WILL NOT accomplish the same job. Sure, they may both deliver the same result in 7 out of every 10 jobs they are given, but those last 3 matter! And are almost certainly going to be the hardest of the 10.
More direct to your point, however, customers ABSOLUTELY DO care whether we replace the radiator with a cheap chinese knockoff that's likely to break in 1k miles, or the 5x more expensive overseas german version. And they ABSOLUTELY do care if the haphazard mechanic or the slow thoughtful tedious one does the job.
They just don't all care equally. Some customers want the cheap chinese knockoff (the giant if-then conditional). If it doesn't work, they'll just throw away the bike and buy a new one. Other customers want the german and thoughtful mechanic, and will pay accordingly.
Its about knowing who your client is and why.