[zevon]

Sure - I guess this is generally true for most work domains, not just machine shops and serious software shops. However, the argument I was responding to was that there is no mucking about in the "real world" and that there is this difference between mucky software people and the serious creators of real stuff. Which I don't agree with.

btw: If we understand "machine shop" as a mass production environment with modern, integrated production lines, it is my anecdotal experience that there is a massive amount of muckery and fuckery involved in getting such an environment to run (usually called "integration" or some such which probably looks better on business cards). There's also a good chance that over the years - or decades - different people will engage in further iterations of the muck-pile to modify the system for new requirements from high on up or weird edge cases, to replace components that are no longer available with other stuff or to do whatever else the day might call for.