1. Make it work.
2. Make it not break.
3. Make it fast.
That's it really. Until the performance of something is blocking what you need to do somewhere else leave it the hell alone.
1. Make it work.
2. Make it right.
3. Make it fast.
Note: The debates over LISP, OOP, Cleanroom, Smalltalk, and so on are all especially interesting.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/blampson/33-hi...
Unfortunately, his current employer chose a different order: 3, 1, 2. Sometimes they drop 1, 2, or 3 separately or in groups at random. Gotten much better at 2 and 3, though.
2. Ship it before your competitor does.
1. Make it work.
2. Make it not break.
3. Make it manageable.
4. Make it fast.
Otherwise I find that trying to make something fast before making it manageable usually ends up in crazy hacks that are hard to undo later.
1) Make it work
2) Make it work better
3) Make it work cheap
The world doesn't need more crummy unusable software.
1. Make it
2. Make it work
3. Make it fast