One of the things I've been trying to do is look for simpler or rules underpinning good or bad design. I think one of the most valuable rules is avoid duplication. "Once and only once" is the Extreme Programming phrase.

When you actually sit down to write some code, you learn things that you didn't get from thinking about them in modeling terms...there is a feedback process there that you can only really get at from executing some things and seeing what works

If you're afraid to change something it is clearly poorly designed.

Now I'm a pretty lazy person and am prepared to work quite hard in order to avoid work.

I can't choose whether someone is offended by my actions. I can choose whether I care.

I find that writing unit tests actually increases my programming speed

In almost all cases, I’m opposed to setting aside time for refactoring. In my view refactoring is not an activity you set aside time to do. Refactoring is something you do all the time in little bursts.