This is both wrong and dangerous. I do hear this sentiment often: "Hey dudes, it's just a prototype! Why waste time making it pretty? Who cares? We're doing SC

This is both wrong and dangerous. I do hear this sentiment often: "Hey dudes, it's just a prototype! Why waste time making it pretty? Who cares? We're doing SCIENCE here!" But prototypes (and beginnings in general) are precisely the time to be extra careful. Wrong turns and self-delusion are costlier, not cheaper, when you're the one paving the road for others. In research, there are many ways to lead yourself astray, due to the inherent chaos of novelty, even without software bugs completely flipping the outcome. The idea that writing shitty code somehow "saves time" and is only worthwhile for the "17th javascript framework" has to go. Articulating your thoughts into a sane logical structure (aka code), with sane names and motivation examples and conceptual units, saves you time even in the short run. Never mind 5 years. It also helps you avoid publishing unreliable, brittle, "SOTA" nonsense… of which there's sadly so much.