try to solve each problem in the most natural manner
That happens to take a significant amount of skill and learning. Read a site like the Daily WTF and you see what too often comes out of letting untrained, untaught programmers do what they're naturally inclined to do. One could learn a lot about programming simply by thinking about why the examples on that site are bad, and what principles would avoid them.
In practice you're right: people have different ideas of maintainability. That is precisely the problem.
try to solve each problem in the most natural manner
That happens to take a significant amount of skill and learning.
But I don't know of any way to acquire this "programming common sense" except on the job. Do you?
One could learn a lot about programming simply by thinking about why the examples on that site are bad, and what principles would avoid them.
Oh, no. What a terrible idea. If you do this without actually pushing through real-world projects of your own, you'll come up with a lot of bullshit "principles" that will take f...
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