Pennington: Professional corner-cutting

In a blog post that likens software development to cabinetmaking, Havoc Pennington makes the case for cutting corners—but only the right corners: "Software remains a craft rather than a science, relying on the experience of the craftsperson. Like cabinetmakers, we proceed one step at a time, making judgments about what’s important and what isn’t at each step. A professional developer does thorough work when it matters, and cuts irrelevant corners that aren’t worth wasting time on. Extremely productive developers don’t have supernatural coding skills; their secret is to write only the code that matters. How can we do a better job cutting corners? I think we can learn a lot from people building tables and dressers."

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