Brilliant code
In other words, taking care of the small and precise details will help to ensure that the big picture will be taken care of. If you don’t get the little things right, the big things won’t be right either.
Writing clean code, just like polishing forks, becomes a habit. Repetition can be seen as tedious, or it can be seen as perfecting a craft. I suspect that Richie was a better fork polisher on Friday than he was on Monday. Friday’s forks were probably more thoroughly polished, more precisely stacked, and more efficiently cleaned. In the same way, good coding habits practiced over and over will lead to better code over time. One person’s tedium is another person’s process of perfection.
Excellence, of course, is contagious. Richie was tasked with polishing forks. But he noticed that someone else was charged with spoons, and others with knives and pots and, most importantly, the food. Being precise, being thorough, being meticulous—all of this spreads throughout an organization. If you insist on it, others will become precise and exacting as well, and they in turn will motivate others. If you set a strong example, the contagion of quality will spread through a whole organization.
