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Even tho IMHO coding is an art, like writing, you cannot compare those two in this case. You write code that will almost for sure, live on for 10+ years and wi
by Draiken 14y ago
Even tho IMHO coding is an art, like writing, you cannot compare those two in this case.
You write code that will almost for sure, live on for 10+ years and will be changed by a lot of people.
Good code will be maintainable and easy to extend/change. Bad code is just... every programmer's nightmare.
Bad code will still be bad even if it made the product go live, and good code will still be good even if it took a few more days/weeks to produce it. The balance between quality and speed is completely product dependent. But sooner or later bad/fast code will claim it's price.
- rizzom5000 14y agoThis is spot on. And to go further, where the OP argued that product quality and development time are mutually exclusive; I submit that they are not. In the right hands, good code can be written quickly and efficiently, just as good novels can be written as quickly as bad ones are, or good music can be written as quickly as bad music is.
- flyinRyan 14y agoBut most companies aren't going to have "the right hands". Many wouldn't want them even if they could get them because they want programmers they can replace easily.
- beeneto 14y agoI agree with your parent, and think you're trying to read it in an over-specific way, it's like saying "You can't compare writing and programming, because writing doesn't have comments." The parent was making the point that, like writing, good and bad coding style is entirely subjective - necessarily so because many parts of it are simply conventional. There are some specific constructions in programming that can be shown to be better than others through complexity theory, but even the guidelines we have for these aren't global optimums.