Reading comments like this gives me hope. There seems to be a polarized view of "jewels are worthless, just ship" or "we need more jewels". Both perspectives a

Reading comments like this gives me hope. There seems to be a polarized view of "jewels are worthless, just ship" or "we need more jewels". Both perspectives are dangerous. Software-jewels have a place, but you have to be selective about what code needs to be that level of quality. And like so many decisions in software development, it's about the trade-offs. If we're writing experimental code with a low shelf-life or internal tooling, we are better off writing code we expect to throw away completely. Writing high quality code here will take time away from making code quality high in areas where it's important. On the other hand, if there are some subsystems critical to our business--we want them robust, extensible, and fast--they are good candidates for "jewel" quality. But you have to allow the time needed for a potential rewrite and more thoughtful architecture.