Comment by d_burfoot

I don't disagree with these principles, but if I wanted to compress all my programming wisdom into 5 rules, I wouldn't spend 3 out of the 5 slots on performance. Performance is just a component of correctness : if you have a good methodology to achieve correctness, you will get performance along the way.

My #1 programming principle would be phrased using a concept from John Boyd: make your OODA loops fast. In software this can often mean simple things like "make compile time fast" or "make sure you can detect errors quickly".