I would add a ninth point. "Leave distinctive footprints." I have written good code, that worked completed as desired, that I knew inside and out--that I then revisited a year later and couldn't make heads or tails of it. I learned. Now when I do something new, something elegant, or something complex, I document it immediately well enough to re-grasp it in short order--and document it idiosyncratically. When I come back to the code--or more frquently, come to another conundrum that will need a similar or transmogrified approach--that idosyncratic documentation is there, and I can search for it, and grasp the code ideas it embodied. It helps immensely with those disruptions that invariably occur. I still vividly recall when I first grasped the immense power of Select Case True because of the kitschy commenting I wrote for it--and I called up that commenting and that code for quite some time!