Good Code Is Not Just About Writing Lines of Code

At work we’ve been having a few coding sessions where we have one computer and a hand full of developers and work on a couple of tasks from the current sprint. It’s sort of like a mini CodingDojo. These meetings have been very educational for learning tips and tricks from each other as well as design and architecture.

As I observe and participate in these meetings, I’m amazed at the amount of time that is spent renaming and reorganizing the code artifacts. This is good that we’re refactoring when it makes sense, but it shows that good code is more about naming and organizing than it is about writing logic (well, the logic has to be correct too). You can write all kinds of goofy code that works, but that doesn’t mean it’s good code. Creating good code is an art. You can say that a good painting is just putting the right tones in the right spots on a canvas. You can say that a good piece of music is just playing the right notes at the right time. Coding is not just about writing lines of code, but about having a place for everything and putting everything in its place. Of course we all have our opinions as to what is good art. 😉