[mathattack]

I was thinking similar. The best (and deepest thinking) programmers that I know are also the fastest. They don't always work the most hours or seem the most harried (which doesn't bode well for places like Advertising which like to seem "Busy and Creative") but they can produce in 20 lines in a day what others produce in 500 lines in a week. They may not look as fast though. ("What? All day? Just 20 lines?")

[collyw]

I also notice that good design decisions can go a long way. I implemented a "shopping cart" type feature where users can select a set of samples they are working with. Initially it was just to compare ones which would have been paginated apart on the interface, and there would have probably been a quicker fix. But it has proved useful for many other features since then.