Unexpected Benefits of being the Only Programmer

During my first tenure as a professional programmer, I learned many things, quite apart from the language itself. As the sole programmer, if a bug was discovered, I 1) knew who to blame, and 2) I knew who would fix it. I mainly learned not to be too clever in writing code. Of course, I WAS too clever on a couple of occasions, and had to then fix a bug found therein, after a good bit of time had passed, under great pressure to get it fixed; now!

So, I learned to write code cleanly, and simply, so that later, when the code had grown cold, I could still understand it, quickly.

That lession has stood the test of time, since nowadays, I am rarely the one who must fix my mistakes, and instead must fix other's. I always try to write my code as clearly as possible, since I may be the one to much fix it.

The Elements of Programming Style is an excellent book by Brian Kernighan and P.J. Plauger. Their rule "Don't be too clever" addresses the above. If only I had read that book, and took it to heart.