'getting it to work' in book: Clean Code, Martin

The following quote is NOT a favorite. In fact, I nearly choked on it.

"Perhaps you thought that 'getting it to work' was the first order of business for a professional developer. I hope by now, however, that this book has disabused you of that idea."

These sentences are in a section of formatting code. While I firmly advocate readability and maintainability of code, I strongly believe that working code is the highest priority--the "first order of business".

My suspicion is that the author intended to persuade coders not to simply hack together something that works without regard to the future. I agree that 'getting it to work' is not the only order of business, but polishing defective code is a waste of time.

Book: Clean Code, Robert C. Martin, p. 76