They Who are these people, really? I mean, I was that for a rather brief period of like a year, somewhere 3-4 years into programming IIRC. I met others like it

They Who are these people, really? I mean, I was that for a rather brief period of like a year, somewhere 3-4 years into programming IIRC. I met others like it. But in the end people seem to learn and grow out of it, and rather quickly so, because it becomes clear what the issues are quickly. Really good learning by mistake though, wouldn't have wanted to miss out on it. mantra That's imo just another mistake to make: wrapping a rather strict and narrowly scoped principle in a paradigm-like-must-be-followed mantra hurts the right-tool-for-the-job idea, which feels vastly superior. Firstly the idea that unmaintainable code is necessarily an issue is already wrong to start with, in my book. Obviously it's not ideal and where appropriate - meaning nearly always - should be avoided at pretty much all cost, but I have enough examples where it does not matter at all. As in: code which hasn't been touched in 20 years and probably won't ever be touched. Does it look like a nightmare? Yes. Does it work correctly? Yes. Does it need changing? No. So, is it an issue where spending time (or having spent time) on it would make anything other than the programmer's peace of mind (well, or ego perhaps) better? Clear no. Secondly: of course I get where you're going with such definitions but it again lacks the very much needed nuancing. I can write unmaintainable code in one file but where you need to change 20 different locations. You could than claim that your mantra still applies because the code should have been split over 20 files, but yeah, that's what you get with mantras :) Likewise depending on the feature it's perfectly possible many files have to be changed but that doesn't necessariy mean the code is hard to maintain. Could try to claim that it wasn't very well architected to start with, maybe, but welcome in the real world where not everything can be thought of from the very start except in small toy applications.