It use to be this: Making something that works is step 1, then you rewrite it again and again until performance is what you need from the application. What seem like bad ideas work sometimes and what seems like a good approach may not work. A lot of silly trial and error. It was good fun seeing hacks that far exceeded what was thought possible. Oh? Its 1000 times faster than my best approach?? what the hell??

Ease of development was an utopian dream.