my personal favorite (which I don’t know where I picked up from is): the difference between good programmers and average programmers is in how they cut corners.

my personal favorite (which I don’t know where I picked up from is): the difference between good programmers and average programmers is in how they cut corners. average ones will mostly walk themselves into a corner where the amount of effort required to fix it means it will never get fixed. good programmers will leave it such a way that it can be improved/fixed given more time.