The author presents a hierarchical priority list for software development: usefulness to end users, correctness, and maintainability/efficiency, arguing that all efforts should maximize user utility.
# My Software North Star
Source: [https://kristoff.it/blog/north-star/](https://kristoff.it/blog/north-star/)
When I make sofware, this is my sorted list of priorities:
1. **Software should be useful to the end user**and strive to become[software you can love](https://softwareyoucan.love/)\.
2. **Software should be correct**, as malfunctioning software detracts from the utility users can derive from it\.
3. **Software should be maintainable and efficient**, in order to avoid wasting human and computational resources when trying to get more utility out of it\.
It doesn’t matter if your blockchain has no bugs, if it’s a rugpull[1](https://kristoff.it/blog/north-star/#fn-1)\.
It doesn’t matter if your language is[memory\-safe](https://joshlf.com/posts/memory-safety-life-and-death/)if you didn’t[design for correctness](https://tigerstyle.dev/)and have no process that will eventually lead you to[fixing all bugs](https://kristoff.it/blog/fix-your-asserts/)\.
It doesn’t matter if your software is a[beautiful canopy of abstractions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo84LFzx5nI), if it runs like shit and nobody is able to maintain it, let alone add new features\.
*Sometimes I run out of steam, sometimes I go down the wrong path, and some other times I deliberately take detours, but nobody can trick me into mistaking lesser stars for my true destination: I do care about my own developer experience, but only in the exact measure that it helps me deliver more software you can love that I and others can enjoy\.*
The ultimate goal is to maximize utility for the end user; everything else exists in service of it, and that’s my north star for making software\.
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