These days I'm almost always opting for #2 by default because it's good enough. Me too, but I think it only works (and also doesn't introduce problems in the l

These days I'm almost always opting for #2 by default because it's good enough. Me too, but I think it only works (and also doesn't introduce problems in the long run i.e. still keeps the software maintainable) because the software to which the fix gets applied is already properly designed to begin with. So in the end #2 only seems to work because the one applying it is good enough, and the software it's applied to is also good enough. At least, that is my impression from a bunch of experiences: applying #2 to what is aleady a trainwreck will usually cause problems in the long run anyway, standard avalanche effect. For proper, elegant pieces of software though basically the difference bweteen #2 and #3 fixes seems to fade away: everything is so loosely coupled and has such well-defined responsabilities that most fixes which are #2 simply cannot become any better no matter how much time spent because they are so focused there is only one way to fix it. Or there might be an alternative way, but the outcome is exactly the same so it's also not really 'better'.