When one works in software development, like I do, and one does not work in frequent contact with clients and colleagues, like I do, it is very easy to lose track of the real world value of the work that one does. Instead it is easy to get caught up in the technical details of the work, especially…

The sum is often greater than the whole of its parts.

I saw that pretty often with the CMSes I’ve been privileged (or horrified) to work on over the years. The sites that come out of those heaps of messy spaghetti code are worth far more that any underlying elegance or cleanliness. Which is not to say that developers should strive to make things as best they can, but to recognize that even with a suboptimal tool, a passionate user can still make something worthwhile.