[indymike]

Great code takes a while. I've learned to take this approach:

Works -> Like -> Love

First I write code that works, pretty much by whatever means I can. Sometimes it's great, but most often, shitty is the right word for it. But it works (sometimes, well, sometimes... um...). Then I try to refactor to something that is likable. It's often not perfect at this point because maybe it's not as performant, there are side effects or the api isn't as well designed as it should be. The final step is to really go for something that is lovable, which usually means will not have to be re-written for a while, and often becomes quite re-usable. The nice thing about this approach is that I'm able to get things working quickly (and make customers happy) and it differs optimization until enough is actually understood to optimize.

[bennyp101]

I've always thought of it as a kind of image rendering!

First pass gets me something that works, then every subsequent pass makes it a little better, like, outlines first, then some colours, then some shading, then some fine details etc