A great software engineer has a healthy balance between perfectionism and pragmatism. Too often engineers want their code to be perfect, while losing sight of the overall goals of the project. A great programmer also learns not to fall in love with their own code, to keep a healthy skepticism until it`s been thoroughly tested, making sure it is the right choice for the project at hand. And yes, I believe have the qualities of a great programmer, though working on my need to be perfect is an ongoing battle. I think one of the main principles of software engineering, and one I try to live by, is to keep things as simple as possible. You`re often already dealing with complex algorithms and design concerns, so no need to make things even more difficult with overly complicated, resource-heavy code. Your code should be simple, lean and easy to read. If you start there, the rest will follow. ©