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What is “good taste” in software engineering?

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Re: What is “good taste” in software engineering?

#171

Post by hellisothers »

CaptainOfCoit wrote: post #141
JKCalhoun wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Good taste" I have found comes from experiencing "good" API's and other "good" code. You know good code (and API) when you see it — and in time you should be able to write it as well. In short though, it's hard to have good coding taste when you are new to the field. (But, as you point out, it's not true that experience guarantees you will acquire taste — you have to both be looking out for it, recognize it, and be…

I'd argue the opposite, and go further and say there is no "good" code, only "not bad" code. I feel like most of what I think is good is because it's the only remaining option left after removing the "bad" ones. It's also way easier to find out why something is "bad" vs why something is "good" for some reason, not sure why. In the end, all code comes with tradeoffs, so I'm guessing we're really talking about good/bad…

I describe this as the Artist vs Scientist software engineer. I’m also an “artist” and approach the problem as a ball of clay, hacking away at it (and sometimes starting with a new ball) until the solution appears beneath my hands. The Scientist approach is to know the solution ahead of time , write tests to ensure it comes out the expected way, and then execute.

Re: What is “good taste” in software engineering?

#172

Post by nosefurhairdo »

Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #168

Good taste implies there is more than taste. It implies there is a true nature of things and what we call taste is a recognition of things that are true to their nature.

No need to contemplate platonic ideals; we've all experienced code that is relatively easy to read and modify, performs well, handles error well, etc.

The author's definition of taste as a prioritization of various engineering values is one we can understand based on experience.

Re: What is “good taste” in software engineering?

#173

Post by BinaryIgor »

t43562 wrote: post #86

> In other words, immature engineers are too inflexible about their taste. They know what they like, but they mistake that liking for a principled engineering position. I have come across this although I think quite experienced engineers can suffer from this kind of immaturity. Aeons ago I used to help friends with their Computer Science assignments. I remember the temptation to rewrite their code because I didn't li…

I think that with experience, great programmers learn to recognize and differentiate subjective parts of software engineering form the objective ones; and then to have more lax and open approach to the former and stricter to the latter

Re: What is “good taste” in software engineering?

#174

Post by estimator7292 »

t43562 wrote: post #86

> In other words, immature engineers are too inflexible about their taste. They know what they like, but they mistake that liking for a principled engineering position. I have come across this although I think quite experienced engineers can suffer from this kind of immaturity. Aeons ago I used to help friends with their Computer Science assignments. I remember the temptation to rewrite their code because I didn't li…

The solution for prejudice, bias, and rigid thinking in general is education and experience outside of your personal worldview. Actively trying to understand the world through someone else's perspective is how you grow as a person/professional and expand your own perspective.

As an engineer and a strong generalist, I find that simply knowing that another angle or solution exists is enough to change my view of a problem and come up with solutions that are better than my first instinct.

Re: What is “good taste” in software engineering?

#175

Post by BinaryIgor »

Interesting article; one of the best takeaways:

"How do you develop good taste? It’s hard to say, but I’d recommend working on a variety of things, paying close attention to which projects (or which parts of the project) are easy and which parts are hard. You should focus on flexibility: try not to acquire strong universal opinions about the right way to write software. "

Re: What is “good taste” in software engineering?

#176

Post by antisthenes »

chii wrote: post #42
eimrine wrote: post #36

Those who have a good taste can distinguish a good taste from a bad taste. Those who don't have a good taste can not.

So who has the good taste when two different people distinguish the same code base differently?

> So who has the good taste when two different people distinguish the same code base differently?

The person with the good taste.

Re: What is “good taste” in software engineering?

#178

Post by RHSeeger »

mojuba wrote: post #31
zx8080 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theere are two quite a widespread classes of not readable code: Some code is not readable by _anyone_. That's not readable code. Some code is readable by its author only (be it AI or a human). That's also not readable one. Saying readability is not a concept is really strange.

I have a formal proof for you that it is a non-concept. If code can be read and interpreted by a computer, it means it can in principle be read by a human. There are of course some edge cases like obfuscated JavaScript or binary executable that some people are able to read and understand. The question comes down to being reasonably readable and we are back to square one: "reasonable" is very relative. In my early day…

You are using a different definition of readable than most people are. Most people are using it to mean "the target audience can read and understand the code, and do so in a way/context that allows them work with it". Your definition seems to be "can read the symbols on the screen".

I can read Assembly. I can, in some cases, figure out what that Assembly is doing. I can not, however, work productively with it. I can read Assembly but would not consider it readable.

Re: What is “good taste” in software engineering?

#180

Post by liquid_thyme »

Bad Taste Leads to X; We're trying to avoid X. To me, it is closely aligned to predicting the future of a code base. So really, good taste is about navigating future uncertainty by laying down foundational elements that protect against the uncertainty so you don't drive off a cliff.
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