Thought for the day: Craftsmanship

It has always been important to me to try to get my projects' source code to be as organized and perfectly laid out as the visible user interface. Why? Partly because it makes future maintenance and upgrades easier, but there's also something to be said for pride of craftsmanship. Even though virtually no one is going to view the source of the websites and apps I design, there is value to me in knowing every part of the project is done as clean and artful as possible.

This concept was highlighted by a quote I read by Steve Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson:

"One of the most important things he taught Steve was [that] it's important to be a great craftsman, even for the parts unseen. When they were building a fence, he said, 'You have to make the back of the fence that people won't see look just as beautiful as the front, just like a great carpenter would make the back of a chest of drawers ... Even though others won't see it, you will know it's there, and that will make you more proud of your design.'"

( source )

Now that I am using the Eclipse IDE for my work, I expect that making beautiful source code will be easier than ever.

The day's work awaits... Today I will return to working on a GIS UI in JavaScript and PHP, with jQuery and the Google Maps API.