I recently read a great post that tied chef Gordon Ramsey's obsessive nature to software quality:

Gordon Ramsey, in his auto-biography, defended his obsessive perfectionist nature, arguing he has to obsess. You don’t win Michelin stars without it.

“It doesn’t matter how amazing the steak is, if it’s served on a cold plate it’s crap. If it’s served with a dull knife it’s crap. If the gravy isn’t piping hot, it’s crap. If you’re eating it on an uncomfortable chair, it’s crap. If it’s served by an ugly waiter who just came in from a smoke break, it’s crap. Because I care about the steak, I have to care about everything around it. “

The parallels in software are obvious. If you see a few lines of atrocious code, you can make a judgement about the programmer. By judging the programmer, you can judge his boss, and by judging his boss you can judge the company. That’s the nature of fractals. The desire for quality trickles down to everything from making sure that the homepage photo isn’t blurry all the way through to making sure that font in Christmas card is correct. As Aristotle said, excellence is not an act but a habit.

Attention to detail is vital. Thomas Keller, the only American with two three-star restaurants, is famously obsessed with the details. In The Soul of a Chef, Michael Ruhlman notes that Keller stores his fish on ice in the direction they swim in the ocean. His serving staff are trained by ballet instructors. He has banned the use of tongs in his kitchen, believing they harm the food. He has stopped to correct kitchen staff when he believed they were not gentle enough with the loaf when slicing bread, and has instructed his servers to replace your bread if it cools before you are ready to eat it. He even inspects every plate that comes back to the kitchen, looking for anything that wasn't eaten.

Chef David Chang of Momofuku turned a tiny noodle shop into one of the most popular restaurants in New York by holding himself to a higher standard:

Just because we're not Per Se, just because we're not Daniel, just because we're not a four-star restaurant, why can't we have the same ... standards? ... I know we've won awards, all this stuff, but it's not because we're doing something special—I believe it's really because we care more than the next guy.

It's easy to see who pays attention to detail in the software world:

How much attention are you paying to the details of your application? You may not be building the next Apple product, but why not hold yourself to the same standards?