If it's stupid but it works, it's still stupid, it just also happens to work
Two phrases really are irksome to me: "If it's stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid" and "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" They bother me not because I disagree with the intent, I wholeheartedly understand and agree with the sentiment. My problem is that they are often used to justify cutting corners and generally producing inferior products in order to avoid fixing problems that customers might not detect. First off, I'm not foolish, I understand nothing is perfect. I understand that software will have bugs, cars will have problems, and sometimes judicious use of duct tape is the best solution. BUT When you don't acknowledge "quick fixes" as such, this inevitably lowers what people think the baseline level of quality should be. In my experience this has a cumulative effect of causing the next "quick fix" to be of even lower quality because it's just a "little worse" than the previous stupid sol...