@macshonle@c.cim - Mastadon

07 November 2010

What is Good Code?

I was lurking around the "Programmers" Question & Answer site on StackExchange when I stumbled upon this question: "What does it mean to write 'good code'?" I gave the following meditation:
A good coder is like a good pool player.

When you see a professional pool player, you at first might not be impressed: "Sure, they got all of the balls in, but they had only easy shots!" This is because, when a pool player is making her shot, she doesn't think about what ball will go into which pocket, she's also thinking about where the cue ball will end up. Setting up for the next shot takes tremendous skill and practice, but it also means that it looks easy.

Now, bringing this metaphor to code, a good coder writes code that looks like it was easy and straightforward to do. Many of the examples by Brian Kernighan in his books follow this pattern. Part of the "trick" is coming up with a proper conceptualization of the problem and its solution. When we don't understand a problem well enough, we're more likely to over-complicate our solutions, and we will fail to see unifying ideas.

With a proper conceptualization of the problem, you get everything else: readability, maintainability, efficiency, and correctness. Because the solution seems so straightforward, there will likely be fewer comments, because extra explanation is unnecessary. A good coder can also see the long term vision of the product, and form their conceptualizations accordingly.
Proper conceptualization is important; it helps you avoid false abstractions.

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