What is good code?
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SSEAR wrote:
Both code will work as it designed for. But which one is the best code?
Ah! There in lies the question. If both work as designed, does it really matter, and whom does it matter too? ;)
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "But you probably have the smoothest scrotum of any grown man" - Pete O'Hanlon (2012) -
Who determines if your code is good? What is good code and what are the precise criteria for giving it a status of "good"? Since most of your code will never be reviewed by your peers (outside of work) then how do you know it is worth a damn, really? If I think your code sucks but the next guy thinks it is good, then who is right? This kind of goes in line with my other thoughts about the "greatness" of an individual programmer. Who determines that a person is a great programmer and that person writes some damn good code? You? Me? None of the above? We obviously cannot make this determination about ourselves or our code. So who does?
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "But you probably have the smoothest scrotum of any grown man" - Pete O'Hanlon (2012)Good code is fit for purpose. Of course the first idea of fit for purpose is that it fulfills the functional requirements and doesn't break the nonfunctional criteria. But as, or more, important might be maintainability. Commenting, clean object orientation and layering of library code might be more important than execution efficiency. Consider whether your project might live long, and might get maintained by several people, and whether those people will be with the project long enough to learn all its pitfalls or whether they will be temporary hires to fix up and add functionality. These factors affect how important documentation, naming conventions and avoiding optimizations that make the code hard to read. In the project I'm working on,good code is code that is tested, where the tests are marked up with requirements tracing so we can see who asked for the functionality and in what context. Then we can retire unwanted functionality which allows refactoring. Without that, we can't touch code in case we break something that some user relies on.
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Who determines if your code is good? What is good code and what are the precise criteria for giving it a status of "good"? Since most of your code will never be reviewed by your peers (outside of work) then how do you know it is worth a damn, really? If I think your code sucks but the next guy thinks it is good, then who is right? This kind of goes in line with my other thoughts about the "greatness" of an individual programmer. Who determines that a person is a great programmer and that person writes some damn good code? You? Me? None of the above? We obviously cannot make this determination about ourselves or our code. So who does?
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "But you probably have the smoothest scrotum of any grown man" - Pete O'Hanlon (2012)I go the other way, I know when code is crappy. Mind you crappy code tends to appear whenever I look at old applications, the more you learn the better your code should be. If it does the job and I like the way it does the job then AFAIAC it is good code.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
If the code works as designed
Have you seen code that doesn't work as designed?
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS My LinkedIn Profile
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If the code works as designed, it's good.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997 -
Who determines if your code is good? What is good code and what are the precise criteria for giving it a status of "good"? Since most of your code will never be reviewed by your peers (outside of work) then how do you know it is worth a damn, really? If I think your code sucks but the next guy thinks it is good, then who is right? This kind of goes in line with my other thoughts about the "greatness" of an individual programmer. Who determines that a person is a great programmer and that person writes some damn good code? You? Me? None of the above? We obviously cannot make this determination about ourselves or our code. So who does?
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "But you probably have the smoothest scrotum of any grown man" - Pete O'Hanlon (2012)Good code can be understood and modified by other developers. Good code is modular enough, but not too much, such that when change requests come it is usually not a major rewrite.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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I go the other way, I know when code is crappy. Mind you crappy code tends to appear whenever I look at old applications, the more you learn the better your code should be. If it does the job and I like the way it does the job then AFAIAC it is good code.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
Mycroft Holmes wrote:
whenever I look at old applications
Exactly. Right now, someone says their code is good. 2 years later, it's crappy. You learn and you get better.
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "But you probably have the smoothest scrotum of any grown man" - Pete O'Hanlon (2012) -
Espen Harlinn wrote:
Have you seen code that doesn't work as designed?
All the time.
Veni, vidi, vici.
I think I'll have to modify this one to: Assuming that compilers, interpreters and hardware works as expected, have you ever seen code that doesn't work as designed? ( Think about what code really is ... )
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS My LinkedIn Profile
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I think I'll have to modify this one to: Assuming that compilers, interpreters and hardware works as expected, have you ever seen code that doesn't work as designed? ( Think about what code really is ... )
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS My LinkedIn Profile
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Slacker007 wrote:
Who determines if your code is good?
First, I do. After 30 years in this business, I know when I've done a good job and when I haven't. Second, I work with a team of other developers on our product. They aren't shy when they find a bug in my stuff. Third, we have a test group. One of them is actually 'embedded' in our department full-time. 'Marcia the Test Terrier' is relentless. Fourth, field service. Our service guys are also not shy about bugs. They also have direct access to our two bug reporting systems (one is for development issues, the other for customer issues). Finally, customers. They've spent from $1.5M to $5M on our product. They have certain... expectations.
Slacker007 wrote:
What is good code and what are the precise criteria for giving it a status of "good"?
Good code satisfies the customers' needs without undue cost. For the developers on my team, it means they don't have to jump through hoops to interface to my part of the product. For testers, they can perform meaningful, repeatable tests and easily report successes and failures. The service guys want the software to help them diagnose hardware problems (our product is a large printing press) and not get in their way. The customer wants the software to print, and wants to be able to have a lightly-trained monkey able to operate the machine. You can see that these 'customers' all have different needs, some of which conflict with each other.
Slacker007 wrote:
Since most of your code will never be reviewed by your peers (outside of work) then how do you know it is worth a damn, really?
See my answer to your first question. There are lots of people to tell me when my code sucks. Relatively little positive feedback comes back. Occasionally Marcia the Test Terrier tells me she likes a new feature. The service guys will also come across with an 'about time you guys did this'. I only talk to customers directly on rare occasions, so I don't hear much from them. Objectively my code is somewhat old-fashioned. While I do tend to implement 'patterns' as defined by the Gang of Four, I'm not as formal about it. I've written code that used those patterns when the book authors were in diapers. Some of my code exhibits anti-pattern or 'code smells' that are presently deprecated. For example, I use underscores in names occasionally. It still works.
This so spot on. Good code is in part measured by how it is used. I don't often bookmark posts, but I did yours. It needs to be re-iterated every time someone asks again about code quality and how to determine it. :)
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra] posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]
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Code is a design specification that can be translated into a program by a compiler or interpreted by a program - it's not a program.
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS My LinkedIn Profile
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Good code can be understood and modified by other developers. Good code is modular enough, but not too much, such that when change requests come it is usually not a major rewrite.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
ryanb31 wrote:
Good code can be understood and modified by other developers
Could you elaborate on which developers that should be? I mean, if part of the requirements is performance, then you can't make that true in general (some other developers will understand it, but not many). And code that doesn't meet the requirements is bad by definition..
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Code is a design specification that can be translated into a program by a compiler or interpreted by a program - it's not a program.
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS My LinkedIn Profile
To me, between the design specification and the actual source code there is an implementation layer. I may have a clear design specification of the algorithm but development issues when trying to implement the algorithm itself into actual source code.
Veni, vidi, vici.
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S Houghtelin wrote:
I think the same holds true for a musical ensemble
A musical ensemble spends a lot of time practising, how many developers does that at all?
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS My LinkedIn Profile
That's because musicians (and many others) have no UNDO.
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Who determines if your code is good? What is good code and what are the precise criteria for giving it a status of "good"? Since most of your code will never be reviewed by your peers (outside of work) then how do you know it is worth a damn, really? If I think your code sucks but the next guy thinks it is good, then who is right? This kind of goes in line with my other thoughts about the "greatness" of an individual programmer. Who determines that a person is a great programmer and that person writes some damn good code? You? Me? None of the above? We obviously cannot make this determination about ourselves or our code. So who does?
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "But you probably have the smoothest scrotum of any grown man" - Pete O'Hanlon (2012)Slacker007 wrote:
how do you know it is worth a damn, really?
Peer review here at CP of course.
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To me, between the design specification and the actual source code there is an implementation layer. I may have a clear design specification of the algorithm but development issues when trying to implement the algorithm itself into actual source code.
Veni, vidi, vici.
The original point was that code works as designed Basicly coding is design work, and can be seen as the last iteration of the whole design process.
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS My LinkedIn Profile
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That's because musicians (and many others) have no UNDO.
PIEBALDconsult wrote:
That's because musicians (and many others) have no UNDO.
I like that! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: ...and musicians can't hide the mistakes by compiling.
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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That's because musicians (and many others) have no UNDO.
Here is an example of programmers with no undo[^] - it performed as designed, but I'm fairly certain it did not perform as intended ...
Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS My LinkedIn Profile
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Who determines if your code is good? What is good code and what are the precise criteria for giving it a status of "good"? Since most of your code will never be reviewed by your peers (outside of work) then how do you know it is worth a damn, really? If I think your code sucks but the next guy thinks it is good, then who is right? This kind of goes in line with my other thoughts about the "greatness" of an individual programmer. Who determines that a person is a great programmer and that person writes some damn good code? You? Me? None of the above? We obviously cannot make this determination about ourselves or our code. So who does?
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "But you probably have the smoothest scrotum of any grown man" - Pete O'Hanlon (2012)All criteria must be met: 1) Meets statement of purpose 2) Easy for the uninitiated to read and bug fix 3) Easy to check out of SVN 4) Easy to refactor 5) Safe to make changes When I write code I aim to hit these points. Other more "senior" developers often snicker when I don't use an inline LINQ statement that spans several lines that connected to an automagic data source, that requires EF v (who cares) to be installed before it can be debugged. Instead, I like a couple of well intentioned class files and the .NET Framework. Sure, it may be more verbose but any idiot can debug it; and that is who will be replacing me.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. I also do Android Programming as I find it a refreshing break from the MS. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost
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Who determines if your code is good? What is good code and what are the precise criteria for giving it a status of "good"? Since most of your code will never be reviewed by your peers (outside of work) then how do you know it is worth a damn, really? If I think your code sucks but the next guy thinks it is good, then who is right? This kind of goes in line with my other thoughts about the "greatness" of an individual programmer. Who determines that a person is a great programmer and that person writes some damn good code? You? Me? None of the above? We obviously cannot make this determination about ourselves or our code. So who does?
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "But you probably have the smoothest scrotum of any grown man" - Pete O'Hanlon (2012)I identify "good" code as being code that:
- works as intended
- is easy to understand (and therefore debug)
- is easy to extend
/ravi
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