never mind, as long as it works

I'm sure many of us would have encountered scenarios resulting in such a statement as above. A colleague was trying to figure out why his nested SQL select didn't work. Frankly, I'm also as clueless as he is. I suggested using table joins instead. It worked. Doesn't matter why it didn't work with nested select, as long as we've gotten something that worked. It didn't matter because the SQL statement is only for data analysis.

A more senior colleague was commenting that designers and developers tend to choose the easier way out when implementing new functionalities for the website. The mindset is as long as it eventually gets the new functionality working, who cares if one have to re-create a similar UI feature all over again in different pages. He is trying to have such a mindset changed, but admits that it's not going to be easy; I concur.


Actually, it doesn't matter in which context the "never mind, as long as it works" mindset appears in, it is a dangerous mindset. Dangerous to maintaining the quality of work one delivers. And it is something everyone is guilty of, myself inclusive.

Of course there are scenarios like the former, where lapsing into such laziness would not cause any further "harm". But situations like that latter involves a much more complex problem domain. In such cases, if the improvement towards the better method is certainly desireable and to be pursued, the question to ask is how much would one tolerate more bugs and design mistakes than if one were to stick to the current one-for-one implementation technique?