You might have heard the expression before, it comes from the Hans Christian Andersen fable, and it means:
To ignore the fact that something is plainly wrong because we don’t give ourselves enough credit.
What should you do when you think something isn’t working? What should you do when you see something is going to break? What should you do when you disagree with the direction of the product or the company?
These are questions that we hope that we don’t have to answer every day. They will however, always come up in the life of anyone who cares deeply about a software product.
We have choices we have to make, some of them tiny, but all of them potentially significant to the life and times of a piece of software. We should choose our moment to influence or act or suggest a change – but stay alert.
You owe it to the product. And the product owes you a living.