> I don't think that Tim Sweeney or John Carmack are prematurely optimizing ... Well, this is where the rant misses the mark, I think. Whether some programming

> I don't think that Tim Sweeney or John Carmack are prematurely optimizing ... Well, this is where the rant misses the mark, I think. Whether some programming thing is Liberal or Conservative really depends on the context, how much is at stake and where you're currently pushing the envelope. The code for the Mars Rover has to be ridiculously safe and conservative, since it cost billions, is deployed in a harsh environment and if it crashes you've lost the lot. If you're hacking and validating some startup idea, then something that's bloated and poorly tested is fine, since it's likely to be wrong at first, and speed of development is more important than safety. Both of these are safe choices, and they're the choices that you'd make, but they're at opposite ends of the spectrum... but you're the same developer. He has 9 points for each side, but my take is that they're all true.