[mozey]

"Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?" -Brian Kernighan

Over time I've come to appreciate this sentiment. Banging out clever code super fast isn't that important... Spending some time up front thinking about types and architecture pays off in the long run. Especially for server side code. Far from being annoying, error messages from the compiler make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

On the other hand, for quickly prototyping user interfaces, some "stream of consciousness" Javascript might just be good enough.

[wonderwonder]

I very much like this quote. Used to work with a team of contractors out of Eastern Europe. They were exceptional programmers but wrote code using obscure language features and in such an odd way that now that they are gone, every time someone has to debug some of their code its a very frustrating process. There are definitely times to use 'clever' coding practices but nine times out of 10, just write it simply and focus on readability. Your team will thank you and you will thank yourself a couple years down the road.

[wolco]

We all used to do this (ii feels right) until we got burned or had to upgrade and rewrite. Now I try to make everything as simple and straightforward. Really helps you scale because yesterdays work doesn' t need to change.