Earlier quoted context omitted.
> most software development is not "real engineering". Most software development doesn't have anywhere near the real world impact of the Boeing/NASA engineering you reference. Good engineering practice recognizes the risks and scales the effort to match it. A CRUD app for internal users has a different set of requirements than a revenue generating SaaS app, just like a backyard fence has different building criteria t…
Sure, I understand the stakes are lower for blog plugins than for aircraft. But being a professional means you do the thing even when the stakes are low. You don't decide to cut corners because you feel like it, or because it's more profitable. Mullenweg is not professional.
Not the way I understand "being a professional." All engineering, and all professions, entail the balancing of interests. There are some hard and fast rules*, like "don't do things that will kill your users." And there are some other things that are more guidelines than absolutes, such as "we don't ship feature changes in release candidates." Serious organizations understand that sometimes guidelines like the latter need to be violated for overriding business purposes.
*Even the "don't kill your users" thing is not an absolute. No car is perfectly safe, for example. We could add three more feet of crumple zone to the front and the back, but we don't, because even in safety tradeoffs have to be considered.