[ConceptJunkie]

I absolutely follow these principles, and I often joke that I do everything I can to idiot-proof my code because the next idiot who comes around is usually me.

But unless you get support for this from middle and upper management, you're fighting a losing battle. You can't fix the world from behind the scenes. I know, I've been trying for many years.

My immediate managers have always been supportive of this attitude, but since everyone above them is concerned only with "How fast can we ship this?", and has the attitude, "We care about code quality, unless that means we have to dedicate resources to it." and "We will gladly spent 10 units of next month's or next year's resources to save 1 unit of resources for this week's release."

I understand the pressures of business needs, and sometimes you really do need to ship ASAP and sacrifice features or the insurance of quality of a well-defined piece of your project for revenue's sake. But at some point, constant compromises point to flawed management.