[pxska]

I'm about 4 years into my career (mostly self-taught and learned-on-the-job), and I actually found Eskil's talk inspiring. The part that hit me hardest (in the good sense) was "don’t implement good-enough APIs."

As someone still figuring out my footing, I often feel pretty torn: should I train myself to always push for the cleanest (or near-perfect) design I can manage (as books like "The Pragmatic Programmer" and talks like this suggest), or is that just setting myself up for frustration in industry where pragmatism and deadlines usually win?

What worries me is exactly what some people here are saying – that "temporary" APIs usually last forever. I’ve already seen that on my team. So part of me wants to internalize Eskil's idealism early, even if it means clashing with more pragmatic coworkers.

For those of you with decades of experience: if you were mentoring someone at my stage, would you tell them to lean toward ideals (aiming high, then compromising when needed), or to embrace trade-offs and "good enough" thinking from the start?