[vijayr]

Honest question - can't one take pride in the fact that people are using his/her code and it is making their life better - saving money/ time etc, even if the code is not top class? Then the question is - which is more important? Make something good enough (and quickly enough) that people can start using, or keep working on something until it is "perfect"?

Obviously, this doesn't apply to life saving (or threatening) software like medical, defense, embedded systems etc.

[pekk]

No, not everything one does for a job is fulfilling or worth being proud of, just because someone asked for it. Often it is something useless, maybe not even what they really wanted, sometimes even annoying or harmful. Lots of us work on things which are basically useless that will go away soon. At the end of life, perhaps all you really accomplished was to stay alive in a certain sort of lifestyle.

Making it technically good is a way of making it interesting and something to be proud of. You could also make something that is yours. You could also make something that is really actually important. Without any of those outlets people will just hate their jobs and only live for their time off.