A while back I started listening to audio books on my way to work.

The last book I listened to was called “The soul of a new machine”, written by Tracy Kidder. “The soul of a new machine” talks about the development of a new 32-bit minicomputer in the late 70s. It received a Pulitzer prize.

At the end of the book, there was one quote that made me pause the audio because I thought it was so interesting to think about. In my talk “Playing nice together”, I explain the context in which our C# monolith was developed. I believe it is very important to understand (and respect) why things are the way they are. These two sentences sum up that part of the talk perfectly.

The strange thing was that I couldn’t find it online. I googled for it, but I couldn’t find it anywhere in the lists of favorite quotes from people. So I decided to buy the epub version of the book, just to look up the quote and share it with you:

What is usually meant by the term craftsmanship is the production of things of high quality; Ruskin makes the crucial point that a thing may also be judged according to the conditions under which it was built.

Version of the book

Kidder, Tracy. The Soul of A New Machine. Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.