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It's true the resulting code isn't perfect. But there are design advantages to holding the code in your head that make up for sloppiness at least that was my observation. A code review for error checking is certainly advisable and good practice to boot!

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but the thing is the poor person finding bugs or adding features in the code is going to spend 2x as long. and then 2x as long the next time, and the next time... "no we can't re-write it, it's working code! just add the feature...".

If Mr. 4x had slowed down a bit and written something more structured, the overall cost would have been less, surely.

No nothing like that at least the couple I've worked with. I think you are confusing these people with "coding minds" with people that can churn out working code quickly (they are a different beast). The code produced by the 4x people is very elegant structurally because they can see how it fits together, this is the strength but it may be missing some edge cases / functionality and or validation in the first pass.

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