[nickelplate]

"But everything not being equal, I'll choose the better project every time, no matter what the environment is like."

Really? Don't get me wrong, I largely agree with the spirit of your post, but... there are some real shitholes out there. At one job my chair was so bad that I could barely move at the end of the day. I had to exercise more often than usual to ease the back pain. The office was often dirty because the owner was too cheap and would only send a cleaner when he really had to. I don't care if you're working on an OS kernel or movie special effects, doing something you love should not come at the expense of your health or personal hygiene. Now I don't particularly care for free lunches or private offices (I prefer shared offices myself, with 3 or 4 developers per office). But the reason Joel's message resonates strongly with so many people is precisely because most developers work in conditions few professionals would put up with. Even in software companies where software is (or should be) a profit center, the accountants, office administrators, etc. often work under much better conditions than the developers.