Eric Steven Raymond in The Art of Unix Programming – Attitude Matters Too:

“When you see the right thing, do it — this may look like more work in the short term, but it's the path of least effort in the long run. If you don't know what the right thing is, do the minimum necessary to get the job done, at least until you figure out what the right thing is.

[…] You have to believe that software design is a craft worth all the intelligence, creativity, and passion you can muster. Otherwise you won't look past the easy, stereotyped ways of approaching design and implementation; you'll rush into coding when you should be thinking. You'll carelessly complicate when you should be relentlessly simplifying — and then you'll wonder why your code bloats and debugging is so hard.

[…] To do the Unix philosophy right, you need to have (or recover) that attitude. You need to care. You need to play. You need to be willing to explore.”