As someone who might resemble that statement
("...temporarily...compromising some of one's values...for one's
family..."), I also see the negative implication in that test. At the
same time, it does seem to be an interesting way to identify "value
statements" that contribute little to the discussion. Everyone agrees
pretty quickly on statements like "I care about the quality of my
work" -- and when too many aspects of one's manifesto/charter/
philosophy fall into that bucket, the statements are easily co-opted
by self-interested individuals and they lose their meaning.
Of course -- if the purpose of a "Craftsmanship Manifesto" is merely
to provide _internal guidance_ to those of us looking to better
understand and grow our skills, that doesn't matter -- it has meaning
to us, and so benefits us. If the purpose is to provide _external
guidance_ where Software Craftsmanship has particular meaning to non-
practitioners (managers, clients, etc.), it become much more
important.
FWIW, I also very much like Brian's added clause "...the code is also
an end, not just a means..." It speaks to me as a practitioner who
does stumble when the "work" is done (tests pass, feature complete),
yet the code still doesn't quite "look right".
I'd like to see some variant of Uncle Bob's 'Boy Scout Principle'
added as well: "I will leave any code on which I work in a higher
state of quality than before I touched it".
--Scott