am i unusual (lucky?) in having to do very little of this? usually i am developing new projects or maintaining things i wrote. even when extending existing work, reading the existing code is only a small part (largely at the start).
You get the simplest code in the least effort if you solve each problem at the appropriate layer. People who never look down into the layers below them end up with lots of unnecessary duplication and cruft.
Well said. True in general, but especially when you're working on some middle layer of a large scale project, it really pays off to understand what's going on at least on the adjacent layers.
When you mostly work with your own code, do you still have that feeling of constantly improving your coding style and code quality (like looking at code that is X months old and knowing you would write it differently today)?
but also, i think it's just the nature of the work we do - typically i am asked to implement something new for a third party (i'm more a hired gun or "consultant" than part of a development team).
so probably it was a dumb comment of mine to post without reflecting more first. sorry.
ps to answer your last question - when i work on my own projects i do a lot of rework. at work i rarely get the chance, because one contract finishes and another starts. but not sure what you were getting at there.
In my last question I was just wondering how or when you (or others) tend to improve their coding style. For me its mostly when reading other peoples code and noting that a) certain aspects are great or b) not so great. But maybe that just comes naturally to me because I don't have that much experience under my belt.