Out of nostalgia I was looking through an article I wrote for Gamasutra back in 2001. I still stand my focus on "actually getting the damn game shipped", and it was fun to see how my thinking was moving towards agile programming methods, though I’ve never worked in a team that embraced it 100%. My favorite part was rediscovering the classic essay How to write unmaintainable code by Roedy Green.
"In the interests of creating employment opportunities in the Java programming
field, I am passing on these tips from the masters on how to write code that is
so difficult to maintain, that the people who come after you will take years to
make even the simplest changes. Further, if you follow all these rules
religiously, you will even guarantee yourself a lifetime of employment,
since no one but you has a hope in hell of maintaining the code."
Everyone writing code should read it if they want to avoid killing their projects with toxic code.
Pete Warden's blog 