Brilliance is not indication of an ability to write clean code. In my experience... | Hacker News

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		sonnyblarney on Nov 14, 2018 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Ask HN: What's the largest amount of bad code you ... Brilliance is not indication of an ability to write clean code. In my experience, code needs to be re-factored 3 times before it starts to look coherent and clean. But 99% of projects can't justify that kind of expense. But good code is very feasible, just takes time.

james_s_tayler on Nov 14, 2018 [–]

I'll expand this further by saying yes to all of the above with the addition that to get it perfect in my experience requires about 7 iterations.

sonnyblarney on Nov 14, 2018 | [–]

Yup. Diminishing returns on that though. I'm happy with 3. Unless it's API or public code used by a wide audience then it needs a lot of eyes and has to be very clean.

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