Science Quote by Yukihiro Matsumoto

Pleasure, in Matsumoto's framing, isn't dessert. It's a design requirement.

As the creator of Ruby, he spent a career watching how "serious" software culture treats joy like a guilty afterthought: you earn it only after the hard parts, after the deadlines, after the "real work". This quote flips the hierarchy. He argues that getting the job done quickly and having the job be fun aren't opposing virtues; they're mutually reinforcing. Speed matters not because hustle is holy, but because time is finite and work will gladly eat it. Fun matters not because it's cute, but because it keeps people thinking clearly, returning voluntarily, and building things that last beyond a sprint.

The subtext is a quiet indictment of the industry that lionizes suffering: the macho pride in unreadable code, the burnout-as-badge, the belief that complexity equals rigor. Matsumoto doesn't romanticize laziness; he ties enjoyment to competence. "Get your job done quickly" implies craft: the kind of fluency where tools fit the mind, where friction is reduced, where you spend less time fighting your language and more time solving the actual problem. "Your life is better" is almost blunt in its refusal to spiritualize work. It's pragmatic humanism.

Contextually, this is Ruby's philosophy in miniature: optimize for programmer happiness. Not because happiness is a perk, but because it changes what gets built, who gets to build it, and how sustainable the whole enterprise is. In a world that turns productivity into identity, Matsumoto's line lands like a small act of rebellion: the point isn't to suffer efficiently. It's to live.