What is it with this long URL for your website?

From this blog introduction post, you can already sense that I care about doing the right software in the right way. The whole domain name for this blog was selected on that premise. More detailed, using the domain name as a template, here are the various software professionals’ behaviours I have encountered along the years while participating in software development projects of all kinds and that convinced me of writing about this topic. “As a software developer/designer/architect, I write…”:

• Software that matters [to myself] done right [according to myself]
  • i.e. I do not care about my customers and I do not care about the industry’s best practices; I might be a bit of a selfish software professional… This is obviously valid for playing with new technologies in proof of concept projects of yours, but not as much interesting for a real world customer!
• Software that matters [to myself] done right [according to the industry’s best practices]
  • i.e. I do not care about my customers but I do care about the industry’s best practice; I am still a little selfish software professional… but with some interest in my customers, I might have the right craft to deliver value.
• Software that matters [to my customers] done right [according to myself]
  • i.e. I do care about my customers but I do not care about the industry’s best practices; I am not a selfish software professional anymore, I care about my customers, but not enough to deliver them consistent business value over time. I might be a bit of a customer-centric hacker…
• Software that matters [to my customers] done right [according to the industry’s best practices]
  • i.e. I do care about my customers and I do care about the industry’s best practices; I am not a selfish software professional at all, I care about my customers, enough to deliver them consistent business value. I might be a bit of a software professional by now… Here’s a picture illustrating even more obviously the difference between a real professional and an amateur…

How do you think your customers perceive you? Hopefully, you are on the left side of the picture! If not, do not worry, we all start from somewhere and I have never encountered yet someone who became a professional over night. This is a process. Do not forget that the young guy on the right in the picture might become tomorrow’s guy on the left and that the one on the left will eventually get old! Anyone with some talent AND dedicated hard work can become a software professional and with some more hard work, you can stay a professional. But until being one, it might be a good idea to properly chose your adversary (i.e. customer 😉 )