The first thing to recognize about coding is that there are different kinds of coding.

Personally to me, the most important to trade off when writing code is to find the write balance between:

• How long the code will live

• How fast do you need to write the code

Different kinds of coding (but not limited to):

• Software Engineering

• Product Engineering

• Architecture

• Hacking

• Scripts

• Programming competitions

• Exploits

• Infrastructure

• Networking

• Servers

• Serverless / faas / functions as a service

• Full Stack Engineer

  • Backend engineer

  • Frontend engineer

• "Mobile" Engineer

• Game engineering

Balance

Properties you should balance when writing code:

• Code Longevity

• Time to write code

Code Longevity

Short Lived

Short lived code can be more inconsistent.

Properties:

• Fast to write

• Generally "throw away" code

Includes:

• Scripts

Long Lived

The longer a code is supposed to live the more readable and maintainable it should be

Requires:

• Clarity

• Consistency

• Maintainability

• Readability

Includes:

• Architecture

Product Engineering

From Forbes:

"full stack" focuses on an engineer's pure execution capability across the stack

"product engineering" focuses on an engineer's capability to deliver the end goal: a product.

Needed for an early stage startup