I think these are all very good ideals to strive towards. However, the real world often doesn't work that way - there is some pressing "business deadline" that you simply cannot avoid hustling to meet. That's why I would prefer writing for a purpose to writing for an audience. That's why his second point is so important - this relates directly to defining the proper interfaces for your code! If your interfaces are all beautiful, you can take an iterative approach to the implementations if there is time pressure. Crank something out that works, put out the fire and then rewrite it afterwards. I've always found that in all times of writing, multiple rewrites are a key technique.