“ Steve’s insistence that greatness isn’t something you can count on, or even something you should strive for, resonates deeply for me. Greatness is far too difficult, too abstract, too daunting. Being good— consistently good— is the real goal, and that takes hard work and discipline. Being good— that’s something concrete you can roll up your sleeves and accomplish. Forget greatness. Can we even define what greatness truly is? Like Steve Martin, you become great through applying yourself at being reliably good, night after night, venue after venue, time after time.
This post is such a rich tapestry of things that interest me that it was hard to pick a specific quote, but I think Jeff Atwood is very clever here in making the non-obvious connection between Steve Martin’s work ethic as a performer and the old software development idea of “worse is better” (the idea that simple, utilitarian, often flawed software that is available now always wins out over grandiose new development efforts).
Even if you don’t buy the “worse is better” idea completely, there are some good lessons here. I think the indie Mac community rewards people with the same work ethic as Steve Martin: release early, release often, and work to consistently please your users frequently in small doses rather than making them wait through long development cycles while you pursue your ideal of perfection. It is very much my experience that most Mac users value consistency and responsiveness over perfection every time.
