"We are what we do repeatedly." If you spend time thinking about best practices, it becomes easier and less time consuming. You need a balance of it early in

"We are what we do repeatedly." If you spend time thinking about best practices, it becomes easier and less time consuming. You need a balance of it early in your career but if you're constantly working at it, it'll become second nature. In my opinion, the best programmers are the ones who have exceptional practical wisdom, who know when to utilize a rule and when to yield to exceptions (no one likes a ferengi programmer -- http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/02/the-ferengi-programmer.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/02/the-ferengi-program...).