The uber-coder's code works the first time - it sits there silently and invisibly working.

Meanwhile, everyone is looking at the hard work and long hours being put in by the guy who's code needs lots of help. He gets the notice, not the guy who did it right.

... but if it passes the Unit Tests ...

That kinda presumes that the unit tests are good, doesn't it? Which means that somewhere, somehow, somebody has to know what problem they are trying to solve.

Defining 'good enough' is really tough. I've seen perfectionists get bogged down, but even more often, I've seen folks that invoke the 'it's good enough' mantra as a cover for sloppiness and incompetence.

Umm, that was definitely Leonard Cohen singing. They used the version from Various Positions , which was released in 1984. It was very heavily edited - not just verses were cut out, but they even removed individual phrases, making it a bit choppy.

Cohen is not a gifted singer. However, he does have a wonderful musicality, but it takes a while to hear it. In short bits he isn't great (but I don't think "really sucked" is a very accurate critique).

Liability can be an interesting thing. When you don't do anything unusual, you don't take any extra responsibility.

Let's say you're a theater manager that isn't blocking cell phone signals deliberately (like now, presumably) ... then somebody has an emergency. Their companion runs out to the lobby, but one of the high school kids is on break, and the other one is getting stuff from the supply closet. The companion runs up and down the halls for a couple of minutes, and finally finds someone. However, that person doesn't have a key to the office where the phone is, so that takes a radio call to the on-duty manager. Finally, after several minutes, help is summoned.

So far, this is bad luck, but not negligence. You never made any promises about how fast they can contact emergency services.

Now, let's suppose that you set up a cell phone blocker. Essentially, you are now saying that you MUST go through the staff to call 911 - you have no other options. You have now made an implicit promise.

With this change, the chain of events described above is a disaster ... the lawsuits would come fast and furious, and be very difficult to defend.

Yep, people had heart attacks before - and they died. Now we have paramedics, automated defibrillators, cell phones, and other tools. So let's try a few scenarios:

• Sorry that he died, but the ambulance's siren was bothering me so I sent them on a fake call. That's OK, people had heart attacks before paramedics.
• Sorry that he died, but the color of the AED cabinet bothered me so I hid it behind a curtain. That's OK, people had heart attacks before AEDs.
• Sorry that he died, but I didn't want my movie interrupted so I jammed the cell phone signal. That's OK, people had heart attacks before cell phones.

Yeah, that's a good argument ... </sarcasm>