Hats?

From a comment on Coding Horror blogpost on Egoless Programming:

A woman goes into a shop to buy a hat. The hat maker takes a length of ribbon, and deftly folds and twists it into a beautiful hat. "How much?" she asks. "Two hundred dollars," he replies. "For a length of ribbon!?" she exclaims. He smiles and just as deftly disassembles the hat, and hands the ribbon to her. "For the hat, two hundred dollars. The ribbon is yours for nothing."

And the followup:

To use this analogy, I think programmers are like the hat maker. In the olden days of programming, it was the art of creating the hat that excited and impressed people. These days, it is the collection of hats they have created.

I like this way of thinking.