I think you should listen to this guy, because while you're busy making something generic, he's changed it ten times and cut and paste it after each change. Yo

I think you should listen to this guy, because while you're busy making something generic, he's changed it ten times and cut and paste it after each change. You need to be a lot leaner and then make things more ideal when the code-base freezes: which is never. For example, with JSON is nice if you're sharing data with others. But parsing anything can be done in half a minute by hand. Likewise, if you start making changes that should be on the buyer's end, you're now consulting for free instead of working on your product. etc etc etc. I say go with him. After learning everything he has to teach you, you will find that some things are still easy to do your way. The reason he REMEMBERS where you don't is because he's thinking leanly about the actual feautre; he doesn't care what the code looks like (within reason) to support it.