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There may be, and often are, valid business reasons so that it's more important to get X working now in a way that's prone to breaking in the future, instead of spending more time to do it properly; and that choice is not really up to the developer, often they wouldn't have enough information/context to make an informed decision. A developer who always takes the time to ensure that things are done right is (in most industries) doing suboptimal work by definition, since one shouldn't always do so, it's a tradeoff.


I once wasted a helluvalot of money obeying just such an order, and not doing the extra coding I knew would prevent inadvertent huge purchase X. Turned out the boss just didn't know how to do complex logic or how to listen, or think ahead. The break, when it inevitably came, was catastrophic, but had the good effect of removing said boss (I was long gone.)


I agree with this sentiment of weighing short vs long terms needs. However, if you are working in a medium to large place not everyone is benevolently doing things just for the sake of the company. Many times managers demand to sacrifice software quality for their own career climbing even if it will be a liability to the company as a whole.


Prisoner's Dilemma. A very real thing in management stuctures - one historical example, middle managers under pressure from the top who cheated on X-Rays testing the work on a silo for a nuclear plant. The big boys didn't know. Killed the plant, and I think, the company.




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