(Uncle) Bob Martin made a keynote address at Agile 2008 where he spoke about many of the concepts in his book Clean Code. In that talk, he proposed amending the Agile Manifesto to add the value of “Craftsmanship over Crap.” He later realized that this wouldn’t work because no one actually values crap. He later changed his proposal in a blog post where he suggested “Craftsmanship over Execution”. In that post he offered up a challenge to find a better word than Execution.

I hereby offer my entry as Craftsmanship over Compromise. I like it because we all value compromise, just like we value processes and tools, comprehensive documentation, contract negotiation, and following a plan. Compromise is a necessary part of the software business. However, we should value the ethic of creating an effective, lasting solution over shortcuts that are instantly gratifying, but are more costly in the long-run.