> When I started out my programming career many years ago, these things were fundamental in the way I created software, however things seem to have gone downhill in recent years.
I'm afraid there never was any golden age in software.
> The pressure in the past from co-founders or stakeholders to 'get things out the door quickly' and to get a quick and dirty MVP out there.
That's been true since Day 1 of software development. Certainly in all of my career.
Sure, but those pressure vary quite wildly across industries and companies. I've had some roles where I felt I could actually treat this as a craft and feel proud of my results. There have been plenty of others where the drive to ship absolutely as soon as possible is the primary motivator. Usually in those instances it's where I've been brought into projects already running behind towards a due date and compromises had to be made. Those happen to be sequential for me, but I don't think it's a case of things actually being better in the good ol' days so much as that's when I had fewer other responsibilities and could spend much more of my time focused on the actual code rather than the dozens of other directions my attention is being demanded. I put out fires more than I create things at this point.
I'm afraid there never was any golden age in software.
> The pressure in the past from co-founders or stakeholders to 'get things out the door quickly' and to get a quick and dirty MVP out there.
That's been true since Day 1 of software development. Certainly in all of my career.