Principle: Make it work, make it right, make it fast

Developers either ship messy code that never gets cleaned up, or spend too long perfecting code before validating the approach works.

Follow Kent Beck's three-phase approach:

1. MAKE IT WORK:

- Get a working solution, however ugly
- Validate the approach solves the problem
- Write a failing test first if possible
- Hardcode values, skip edge cases, use TODOs
- Goal: prove feasibility

1. MAKE IT RIGHT:

- Refactor for clarity and maintainability
- Extract functions, name things well
- Handle edge cases and errors
- Add proper tests
- Remove duplication
- Goal: code you're proud of

1. MAKE IT FAST (only if needed):

- Measure first — profile, benchmark
- Optimize the actual bottleneck
- Don't guess where the slowness is
- Goal: meet performance requirements

Critical rules:

• Never skip step 2 (tech debt is expensive)
• Step 3 is optional — most code doesn't need optimization
• Don't combine steps — they need different mindsets
• Each step should be a separate commit

Separating correctness from optimization prevents premature optimization and ensures you validate the approach before investing in polish.