Maybe, but that was not the question. I think that perspective is lacking context as well. Programming has generally gotten better over the last 50 years. It is

Maybe, but that was not the question. I think that perspective is lacking context as well. Programming has generally gotten better over the last 50 years. It is not a dichotomy of just good code vs bad. Most code is bad, has been bad, and before that was even worse. One could almost view Clean Code as a response to Java Swing - a potential case study of bad API design. I personally greatly appreciate the new focus Clean Code put on API design that was lacking beforehand.