Ask HN: What Makes Software Great?

What makes software great?

Of course it needs to work for its intended purpose. But that alone does not make great software. That is merely table stakes.

The more I work in this industry the more I think the main thing that defines greatness is:

Is the code easy to understand?

Of courses there is subjectivity in even this, but could a reasonably intelligent developer easily see what is going on in a codebase, even as it grows sufficiently large.

Empathy is a superpower here. How much are you thinking about the poor souls that will follow in your footsteps and be asked to build upon your foundation?

I know this is a complex topic with plenty of subjectivity. But I am curious what your thoughts are here.

What makes software great?

Adaptability, maintainability, reasonability etc are virtues that are difficult to overstate.

- It is reliable

- It is focussed

- It models its domain well

- It is efficient in its interactions and use of resources

- It scales the patterns of interactions to the proficiency of its users

- It is fast

- It does not break compatibility of its interface without reason

- It is intuitive

- It is well documented if documentation is necessary

- It is accessible and international

- It is open (source)

- It is extendible

- It has a community around it

- It helps users to understand the domain and possibly extends the common understanding of that domain

- It works in the best interest of its users

- It does not lose data

- It fails gracefully and explains reasons for failure clearly

- It does not contain ads

- It fosters creative solutions to problems

I disagree and it's probably illustrative to explain why.

The worst engineers I've ever worked with have all been obsessed with the idea of software rather than what it accomplishes. Modular code, readability, efficiency: all are means to an end. Good engineers will do these things in proportion to their utility to the end goal.

In contrast, there's a legion of engineers who right this very instant are more concerned with onboarding processes, whether their code has the right subjective shape, what the linter rules are, and whether there is enough content on the company blog. Don't be one of them. Build useful things and don't "play software engineer." People who do work on building software will be too busy to care about ephemera and they'll achieve excellence because that is what is required of them.

Put another way: if working software is just "table stakes", raise the stakes. There is no better way to improve the objective quality of your software than to make it do more for the user or have it do it better. It is the reason for code to increase in quality.

  1> easy to understand
  2> reliably does what you expect
  3> works well with the compute power you have available, doesn't waste it
  4> works well with accessories, in a predictable manner
  5> can be applied in a wide range of situations, without breaking above

  1> Easy to understand
  2> Supplies only the resource you expect, and nothing else
  3> Stops the load if it tries to gobble up resources
  4> Doesn't let the load send things elsewhere(like a ground fault detector)