Designer, implementor, user, writer A Fragment by Donald Knuth dl.acm.org Thus, I came to the conclusion that the designer of a new system must not only be the implementor and the first large-scale user; the designer should also write the first user manual. The separation of any of these four components would have hurt TeX significantly. If I had not participated fully in all these activities, literally hundreds of improvements would never have been made, because I would never have thought of them or perceived why they were important. Eating your own dog food making
Bells Most Japanese bells when hung still have on them one or more rough lines obviously arising in horizontal mold joints. These lines are not removed in fettling the bell, and they seem to be regarded not as defects but rather as a reminder of the reality of the founder’s interaction with his materials. One is reminded of the ceramics that are most treasured in Japan which usually have some unexpected tool marks or irregularity resulting from a kiln mishap. Cyril Stanley Smith, A Search for Structure Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle, 1995–7 flawswabi-sabi