The pyramid of code quality (Part II), the 3 different types of codes.

Over-engineering tends to happen when people plan out the entire structure of an application or codebase before starting.

Under-engineering happens when deadlines pile up and there is no time to refactor to known and useful design patterns. Or, in the worst-case scenario, the developer has no idea about design patterns. Most code out there is bad due to the latter two reasons, not the former one.

Over-engineered code, yes, is often denser than it needs to be. But oftentimes it's a lot easier to come in and understand it than, say, a 16000 line PHP file with no functions or objects - just a bunch of nested if/else... I'd argue that the former is possible to refactor, while you're better off just dousing the Gordian Knot code in kerosene and tossing a match on it.

Hi swombat, thanks for your comment, I actually completely agree on what you say: "Over-engineered code is as much in need of a refactoring as under-engineered code" I should have also mention that on the original article. Good observation, thanks!!!!

Hi callmeed and any other eventual reader, please accept my apologies for my bad writing in English, I hope you will understand it's not my native language and that I do my best, anyway, going forward I will try to get my articles reviewed from some native speaker guy before publishing them. Thanks for your comment!!!