[_m4]

I am a bit suprised to not see TDD or any of its siblings being pulled into the discussion.

To me, the better someone is doing TD, the better the code communicates because TDD makes you think about the right things when coding. It sets your priorities straight.

So the question of n00b or vet for me is just how well someone does TDD. And there is also this great book by Kent Beck about Implementation Patterns that is all about well-communication code.