Something I would add that helps when writing simple software is testing. You have to close the feedback loop early and often. Until you see what your program does you won't really understand it.

Thinking you understand what you're making before you really know is one of the worst mistakes you can make. It's under that misunderstanding that you'll think you need to add to your program to make it more correct and fast, when really you're over complicating it and making your life worse when you actually need to get it running.

In contrast, when you can run a test as soon as possible, that's where I usually see an alternative way of writing it that may be shorter, more correct or faster

You'll never get to this point of course if it isn't simple in the first place.