> If programmers paid more than lip service to responsibility, the whole dumb paradigm of "worse is better" would not exist in the first place. I used to think

> If programmers paid more than lip service to responsibility, the whole dumb paradigm of "worse is better" would not exist in the first place. I used to think like this but I've come to realize that there are two underlying tensions at play: - How you think the world should work; - How the world really works. It turns out that good technical people tend to dwell a lot on the first line of thinking. Good sales/marketing types on the other hand (are trained to) dwell on the second line of thinking and they exploit this understanding to sell stuff. Their contributions in a company, in general, are easier to measure relative an engineer since revenue can be directly attributed to specific sales effort. "Worse is better" is really just a pithy quote on how the world works and it's acceptance is crucial to building a viable business. Make of that what you will.