Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I feel like our industry is in two camps right now, one that firmly believes quality always pays off and one which believes it

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I feel like our industry is in two camps right now, one that firmly believes quality always pays off and one which believes it is more of a luxury. Unfortunately, I don't see either side backing it up with anything that looks like real evidence. It's so complicated to evaluate that I don't think anyone really can prove either way. But you can't not have an opinion since it's an important question, so it seems like people join one camp or the other mostly because it suits their personality or working style. If they take pride in their work and feel disappointment at the prospect of producing code they can't be proud of, they tend to believe quality is worth it in the end. If they are impatient and like to wrap up one thing quickly so they can move on to the next thing, they tend to be in the other camp. I myself am in the quality and correctness camp, and I really would love to know that it always pays off because that would mean the way I prefer to develop software is also the most practical and reasonable way. But I can't really prove that it's the right view when you consider the economics.