[jmcgough]

I think it depends on whether it needs to be maintained over a period of time or if multiple people need to work on the codebase. If it's just being written for one paper then sure, just get it done as quickly as possible.

However, there's no reason not to follow some best practices. Using a VCS has pretty much no cost other than some initial learning curve, and the productivity benefits can be substantial. So - I think there's a balancing act in terms of optimal speed between writing good code and writing code as fast as possible.