Depends on what stage of learning curve one is in. For somebody new - strive to be good at data structures, design patterns and consistent code style. - - Als

Depends on what stage of learning curve one is in. For somebody new - strive to be good at data structures, design patterns and consistent code style. - - Also as we get into programming in multiple languages over the course of our careers - we can better harness the power of code templates (live templates in Intellij or code snippets in VS === kind of meta programming). eg: I can spend couple of weeks to learn a new framework/language (which sometimes can involve lot of syntax) or Just few days to learn concepts well - then an hour to make handy live templates in editor. Latter I've found - boosts productivity really well.