Wow, I wish I'd written this:
http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html
It only relates tangentally to this thread, but, whatever.
As to this thread, I think you really need to consider context. Work on any piece of software can be optimised to a variety of goals -> development ease/speed, run speed, size, code readability, portability, end-user ergonomics, "look", &etc. Or even some other, more specific goals (compatibilty or integration with some legacy code/system for example).
Some of these goals tend to be conflicting, some not. But generally any project will prioritise these goals. If you're coding a 2600 game then end-user ergonomics (gameplay) and "look" are almost certainly #1a and #1b followed by run speed and size while reability is going to suffer and portability will be non-existant. If you're writing in VB then development ease/speed is almost certainly #1 with end-user ergonomics (user friendly) not far behind. If you're working in a group, expecting your code to be modifiable later or to be used as a tutorial then readability does become a priority. &etc.
Writing code becomes a balancing act between these priorities but IMHO a hard and fast rule that any of these goals takes absolute precedence, all the time, is counter-productive. Flexibility is the only real absolute.
Chris...
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