[donaldc]

He has a point for smaller-scale programming. Certainly, even when designing part of a larger system, one should aim to be as clear and well-structured as possible.

But beyond a certain scale, complex systems, including complex software, must be grown and not master-planned. This is one of the main advantages of iterative design and development.

Organic life passed this level of complexity long ago. Yes, evolution is dumb enough that it has passed up some obvious improvements. But humans are not (at least not yet) so smart that they could design even a bacterium from scratch, without resorting to iteration, and trial-and-error.

[stcredzero]

Actually, we are designing a bacterium from scratch. But to do it, we are doing some cut and paste from previous examples.

http://www.ted.com/talks/craig_venter_is_on_the_verge_of_cre...

There is, however, a modicum of refactoring.