Taking a solid, well-thought-out approach to problem solving is not premature optimization. Focusing solely on "cleanliness" of code is highly misguided in many

Taking a solid, well-thought-out approach to problem solving is not premature optimization. Focusing solely on "cleanliness" of code is highly misguided in many cases. It's quite possible to write clean code that adeptly solves a given problem, but in order to do that, efficiency cannot be disregarded.