I actually agree with the author on both points. There just isn't a good way of measuring how you use your time refactoring and cleaning code, when you could be fixing bugs or adding features (both of which are always-present).
Hence, it's difficult to justify too much time in "beautification" if your code works, even at competent shops. At some point, all of us just need to get the code out, so we must all strike a reasonable point between beauty and reality.
On the first point, I release a fair bit of code into the public domain. Even though I do make it nice and pretty as I code, it always takes additional beautification work before I'm ready to release it to the world (i.e. better commenting, code structure, or documentation). I'm pretty sure it takes a rare programmer with a lot of free time and great experience in the domain to actually have beautiful code at the conclusion of a project.
Constant refactoring makes it easier for me to add new features.
The first time I get something working, I often don't have the perspective to know how the best way to organize or abstract it. If I didn't go back and clean that up, it would be significantly harder for me to add on new features.
I actually agree with the author on both points. There just isn't a good way of measuring how you use your time refactoring and cleaning code, when you could be fixing bugs or adding features (both of which are always-present).
Hence, it's difficult to justify too much time in "beautification" if your code works, even at competent shops. At some point, all of us just need to get the code out, so we must all strike a reasonable point between beauty and reality.
On the first point, I release a fair bit of code into the public domain. Even though I do make it nice and pretty as I code, it always takes additional beautification work before I'm ready to release it to the world (i.e. better commenting, code structure, or documentation). I'm pretty sure it takes a rare programmer with a lot of free time and great experience in the domain to actually have beautiful code at the conclusion of a project.