Although it was a difficult and painful decision, in retrospect, I believe it made the product successful. The important lesson is that the entire team was willing to follow our own dictum to maintain the integrity of the architecture rather than let it erode. Information systems security and privacy are way ahead of everything else in terms of needed attention. It appears that the funding is about to increase dramatically. The community will need to respond with great ideas to make good use of the additional funding.
Software engineers face enormous challenges.
We are building systems that have so much complexity that they require deep thought, innovation, and discipline. Entire enterprises, even people's safety often may depend on your work. Approach your work as a profession and devote your study and energy to it as a lifelong profession. Inadequate design consideration for eliminating unexpected consequences, and then testing for them. We have too many systems out there with undocumented features.