[respondo2134]

Your description of feedback for software development that "it runs" is like playing something on the piano and saying it sounds like the midi version so I'm good. There are a lot more accessible examples for piano than software development. You might not be able to determine how they accomplished some aspect but you can definitely hear & see the difference. The same is not true for software.

[norir]

I suspect the most underrated skill for learning music is listening. With a close listen, it becomes obvious that when I play piano (novice at best), even just a single note does not sound as good as an excellent player. Once you've identified a gap, you can focus on learning how to fill it.

It's easy to get focused on objective measurements like how fast you play a scale and forget to ask "but does it sound great?" This is the bigges risk with the grit mindset. With software, it's more subtle but I think it's possible to essentially ask whether a program is lifeless or if it sings. The hard part is that usually you can feel whether a work is good before you can explain it. There is a lot of software that I might liken to some shredders on guitar: it's impressive technically but there is something ineffable missing and it leaves me feeling cold.