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."