The shift from being a perfectionist hacker to an pragmatic hacker is well expressed in this blogpost
The blogger reflects on the quotation, probably incorrectly attributed to Voltaire, that the “perfect is the enemy of the good” and decides that the opposite is true in many circumstances
The hacker community as a whole often strives for the best performance, or the best design, but there are many occasions when 95% of a solution that works well is better than a perfect solution that takes too long to achieve.
The blogger relates this to their DIY coffee roaster, where a functional but imperfect solution provides a stream of coffee, whereas a perfect solution is too costly in terms of time and resources to implement.
The key to successful hacking is to decide which problems are worth solving perfectly, and which are not.
