And you end up with the 60+ year old TODO this way. Or lack proper reason comments (the why) and end up in a gaggle of legacy code.

My rule is simpler: never write instant legacy code. If it feels like something you won't understand a month later, it likely is legacy code.

If it reads badly (and I'm not talking about this or that brace or whitespace choice), then it also provably is in that category.

If there is actually a trade-off like tshannon notes, then by not making it work first, you may end up with un-finished projects.

The solution to making it work first is to make a prototype with the correct design. You do not have to implement it at once.

(On C2 wiki, a proper SpikeSolution)

If you hit a case your design cannot cleanly handle, it is time for redesign, but often a tiny amount of design constrained by use cases will expose a good design quickly.

They never give me the time for items #2 and #3. As soon as it works most clients and bosses figure "done".

How does that work exactly?

Why can't you just keep working until you consider your task done?

Are you working as a developer? If so, how do I join your team? In my life as a developer I have deadlines that are set by customers and no amount of explanation that I need another week to make the code bomb-proof will shift them.

I've heard about jobs like that, but I would never take one. There are far less insane developer jobs out there, and you could try to find one!

Development time is inherently very hard to predict, so strict deadlines - even if set by people who understand the technical issues don't make a lot of sense. There many books on this, and I won't try to summarize them here.

Still, if you have a deadline, you can use your time however you want before the deadline, right? So if it's better/faster to clean up the code after you made it work than to try to type everything perfectly the first time, what's stopping you?

Or is it that the deadlines are so tight that you only have time to write terrible code?