learning to drive

in his book extreme programming explained, kent beck compares software development to driving a car, and makes the following insight:

The driver of a software project is the customer. If the software doesn't do what they want it to do, you have failed. Of course, they don't know exactly what the software should do. That's why software development is like steering, not like getting the car pointed straight down the road. Our job as programmers is to give the customer a steering wheel and give them feedback about exactly where we are on the road.

talk about a useful mindset to have! on a similar note, eric (my current manager at work) always tells me about how in one of his most succesful projects, they presented the product to the customer on a daily basis to provide the feedback beck talks about.