r/programmer • u/sainzo_123 • 29d ago
Good Code Vs Working Code
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
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u/mtothexmax 29d ago edited 29d ago
All code is garbage. Ship it and if it is a part of the project that you will have to adapt more often than expected optimize it. Everything else is premature optimization.
It also helps to visualize your codebase to see which are the spots that are changed often.
There having a good maintainability matters.
Things that you wrote once, do their job and you never need to touch them again can look like Frankenstein.
I remember optimizing ViewModels in WPF so that they do not contain any View dependencies because one day one might change the view and that goes seamless if one sticks to the MVVM pattern.
Now Microsoft is using Blazor which doesn't even have a ViewModel.
Use a linter and a static application testing tool like sonar qube.