There are three key points highlighted in How to Build Good Software:

• Reusing good software is easy; it is what allows you to build good things quickly;
• Software is limited not by the amount of resources put into building it, but by how complex it can get before it breaks down; and
• The main value in software is not the code produced, but the knowledge accumulated by the people who produced it.

These points lead me to view software development as more of a social profession than a purely technical one. Good software is a reflection of healthy interactions within an organization. When communication is difficult, it becomes much harder to accumulate knowledge about organizational needs, manage complexity, and effectively reuse software components.