How ofte are you guys absolutely sure that you've picked the right solution for a specific problem? As a novice programmer it bugs me to death that I sometimes don't know if I'm using a "best practice" solution

@g-m-f yeah you are right :) guess I just have to put that perfectionism aside for now!

If you've used different basic algorithms and design patterns a few times you start to get a feeling what's an efficient way for your current problem.

*Truth be told, most times, once it works well, i stop caring unless speed is absolutely critical. In my cases so far, it hasn't. You're better off getting it done, THEN worrying about optimizations once you find the time or somebody complains.

*assuming that your code isn't a blatant hack, you'll be good

That question is a NP problem :P