While I say this not for sympathy or any other crutch, I firmly believe in what your guys are saying, but to read 920 page of an EBOOK on "code complete" as suggested and eventually will go over, or absolute proper naming convention.....what I've been given to start (including almost barely commented code)......I now have to figure out the logic of what was implemented
the very simple way to (almost) do it right is: When you write code, do not think 'wrting' think 'debugging'. It only takes 3% longer to write debuggable code and research show that debugging is 50% of the job, so 'wasiting' 3% of half will gain you 50% of the other half, you figure out the net gain yourself. i have seen people mired in debugging because they "wrote the code fast"

on this part
almost barely commented code)......I now have to figure out
when figuring out some 'given' code, there is no better way to figure (and preserve the figuring) than adding commnts as you go.

Erik