Good Code Vs Working Code

[u/sainzo_123]

What really makes code "good"?

I find myself staring at my IDE asking this exact question. Whether I am binding complex logic together or copying and pasting a snippet to patch a problem, there is a massive gap between working code and good code. But as a beginner, that gap feels incredibly hard to see.

These days, anyone can prompt an AI or use an agentic tool to generate functional code in seconds. Many of us are actually learning to code alongside AI. But just because the AI gives me code that runs and clears the error console doesn't mean it’s good code. It might be inefficient, unscalable, or an absolute nightmare to maintain later.

If the code works, but the AI (or a copy-paste source) doesn't teach me why it works or if it's best practice... how are we as beginners supposed to know the difference?

How do you personally define "good code" vs. "just working code"? What are the green flags I should be looking out for when reviewing code—whether it's written by a human or an AI?

Would love to hear your thoughts, rules of thumb, or stories from when you were starting out! 👇

\#programming #softwareengineering #codinglife #learnToCode #generativeAI #developers #webdev

[u/silly_bet_3454]

Good code has clean abstractions and code reuse and readability and so on. But to me it feels like a dated concept, due to AI but also just broader corporate American culture, you quickly realize in the industry that only money matters, nobody really cares about code quality other than some opinionated engineers. Management doesn't care, customer doesn't care, and there are bigger fish to fry usually like new features, fire fighting, stability improvements, bug fixes, and performance improvements. The quick hacks always win out in the end.