(2004), but I gave it an upvote because (a) it is a great story and (b) it has a great quote in it:
It is a cliche in our business that the first 90 percent of the work is easy, the second 90 percent wears you down, and the last 90 percent - the attention to detail - makes a good product.
I feel like there should be a "meme museum" or "hacker history" website that catalogs and celebrates all these stories in perpetuity. It seems like a few classic stories pop up on HN, Reddit, et al. every 6-9 months, seemingly discovered anew. I don't think its a bad thing, but it does suggest there isn't an organ that gives a permanent home or chronological history of these important ideas.
I also found this to be a great quote: "My skunkworks project was beginning to look real with help from these professionals as well as others in graphic design, documentation, programming, mathematics, and user interface. The secret to programming is not intelligence, though of course that helps. It is not hard work or experience, though they help, too. The secret to programming is having smart friends."
It is a cliche in our business that the first 90 percent of the work is easy, the second 90 percent wears you down, and the last 90 percent - the attention to detail - makes a good product.