I suspect our experience is indeed different. :) I've had the good fortune of working with good programmers doing performance critical C and C++ for a hobby pr

I suspect our experience is indeed different. :) I've had the good fortune of working with good programmers doing performance critical C and C++ for a hobby project--the time spent in design has paid off, and the codebase is a joy to work with. Sadly, the code has yet to see the light of day, because reasons. For the purpose of "get game project finished", more bad code faster probably would've been better, though we would've had to rewrite it anyways. As for the rest, I've been in a few shops now where people who should've known better (or who didn't!) have written klocs and klocs of unmaintainable poorly-performing garbage and who subscribe to the "code owner" philosophy. The result is, of course, that you can't fix or even organize their messy fiefdoms, and so there is no peace-of-mind to be had that the code works. And yet, the businesses still trundle along to this day despite what is probably stage 4 cancer of the IP. Maybe it's just Stockholm syndrome. I kind of feel like an abused puppy every time I have to look at that code and fight, for hours and weeks, to do something as basic as "Hey, maybe we should try both debug and release targets!"