Unfortunately, time does not permit me the opportunity to delve deeply into my thoughts here. So, here's a short list of areas within the development process that developers think are "nonnegotiable":

1. Code quality. No sloppy code, no repeated code.
2. Source code control. Gotta have it.
3. Repeatable build processes.
4. Dedicated development, test, and production environments.

There is also a secondary list of items that are close to these ... but that will have to wait for another day.