The xkcd cartoon hits on an orthogonal dimension, almost universally ignored, which is why I liked it: It's an economic endeavor, not an artistic one. I've bee

The xkcd cartoon hits on an orthogonal dimension, almost universally ignored, which is why I liked it: It's an economic endeavor, not an artistic one. I've been in some choruses, and it's really worth it to make every single thing as good as you can possibly make it. The audience for the concert appreciates the totality of what you do. A coding project is not art like that. It's not worth making most things perfect, and moreover, you can't tell now which ones are going to be worth it. Every hour you spend on polishing something that's going to be thrown away in two years is an hour you can't be doing something more valuable. The Net Present Value of extra work five years from now is almost zero.