Hi, Ken.

>Every year of experience I gain enables me to smell my own code more quickly. I think that even developers with many years of experience, though, can get trapped in the mental struggle to solve a problem and bring increasingly heavier artillery (lines of code) to bear, when if they stepped back and remembered, "Do the simplest thing...", they'd realize they could just adjust the aim of their BB gun a bit and hit the target. I think even the XP gurus need to sit back, take a deep breath, and repeat that mantra to themselves at times.

I couldn't agree more. Before having a code-stroke, try with the "Pattern Recognition" mantra:
"he took a duck in the face at two hundred and fifty knots"
repeat until you mind is clear...

8-D

Regards,