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'eye of the beholder' is a cop-out argument. In both art and code, there are objective differences between high-quality and poor-quality products. Leaving the d

'eye of the beholder' is a cop-out argument. In both art and code, there are objective differences between high-quality and poor-quality products. Leaving the definition of quality as merely a personal taste sidesteps the difficult yet rewarding issue of determining what those differences are. The old line was that "Jazz can't be taught, but somehow you have to learn it." Modern musical teaching and theory amply demonstrates that Jazz can be taught. It just took time for the pedagogical techniques to catch up with the modern practice. We may not yet have a complete definition of what makes Quality code, but that does not imply that no such definition can exist.

Goronmon 18y ago
In both art and code, there are objective differences between high-quality and poor-quality products. The hard part isn't finding the differences between good and bad code. The hard part is finding differences between good code and average code. There is also a big difference between pointing out examples of quality code and being able to establish guidelines that lead to quality code. In other words, I do think that much of what determines "quality" code comes down to what aspects the person viewing the code believes are the most important.