Oliver Reichenstein, Putting Thought Into Things:
Quality — as in “fitness for purpose” — lives in the structure of a product. A lack of quality is a lack of structure, and a lack of structure is, ultimately, a lack of thought. One does not find a solid structure by following some simple method. We deepen the structure by deepening our thought on the product. Our role as designers is to put thought into things.
I've noticed I do the worst, as a developer, when I'm using tools and methodology to avoid thinking. Not entirely sure how to solve this problem, write some tests and commit whatever makes them green. Troubleshoot by tinkering with commenting code out, trying different incantations, pasting snippets found on the internet.
Each advance in how I build software is lead by finding some way I defer or avoid thinking and correcting that shortcoming. In doing so, I find myself a little more opinionated, a little more specific about what really matters in making software and what is dressing.
Put more thought into what I build. Always think about what constitutes The Quality for the kind of software I want to build. Seek to avoid the tech vogue in search of deeper quality and thought. I’m far from mastering any of these disciplines, but the results so far are promising.
