Why does doing it right take less time than doing it over?

From Pattern Language dot com, a conceptual framework midwifed by Christopher Alexander:

...Then what happened is we tried building buildings not just writing down known solutions. What something looks like actually depends on how it is made. If you watch raindrops fall off the tree, you can see that the tear drop shape is formed over time and couldn't get that shape any other way.

If you look at corn kernels on the cob, you can see that the kernels are not quite straight or even but have grown to fit just so on the cob. It's why we enjoy things that are hand made and find mass produced widgets so boring and would like a house that fits just so in the landscape, and like a jewel, brings forth the charm of the landscape itself.

So all our attention was on understanding process, how things unfolded and got made so that each part was unique and had a just so rightness in the way it fit.

But what we're working most hard at is writing sequences. Now a sequence is something that looks very very simple and is actually very very difficult. It's more than a pattern; it's an algorithm about process. But what is possible is to write sequences so that they are easy. You follow the steps in a sequence like you follow the steps in a cooking recipe....

A sequence is like a bit of genetic code. It helps things to unfold in the right way. An human embryo follows steps as it grows, and if it misses a step then there is a malformation. But ten embryos following the same sequence will lead to ten very different people, each one unique.

A sequence means a different process.

Normally what happens when you build a house, for example, is that an architect, tries more or less or understand what you want and makes a blueprint. But a blueprint and CAD designs are mostly guess work about what is going to be just right for the dimension of a room or the placement of a window. It's like tossing thirty coins all at once and hoping they all land on heads. Never works. A sequence is figuring out which decision has to come first and getting it right and then moving to a second decision. Like tossing one coin at a time, which is actually a much better, faster, and less expensive way to get to thirty coins all on heads. But if you work from a blueprint you are stuck with your guesses and the builders, who aren't the architect, just have to follow the blueprint, even when they know a much better solution. It's a silly way to do things.