Lessons from life

On a recent business trip to Germany I visited a vineyard. Seems as if climate change in Europe means that the Rheinland vintners can now make reasonable reds, but the (Merlot, in this case) grapes still struggle in the cooler weather. So, in September time the winemaker goes out and removes, by hand, any unripe fruit before the harvest is made and the wine begun.

The polyglot colleague who kindly translated the winemaker's story put it that they "sacrifice quantity for quality". Of course, I shrugged, they reduce scope.

Winemakers have an immovable "delivery date", the time after which the fruit will be past its best. And since, in the case of the Fleischer family, they believe that their business can only flourish is their product is excellent what they do is prefer to deliver less if that maintains the value of what is delivered. Why is this obvious to a winemaker, but not to so many programmers?