{"id":43,"date":"2007-03-28T08:22:29","date_gmt":"2007-03-28T12:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jrtwine.com\/blog\/?p=43"},"modified":"2008-03-31T17:22:26","modified_gmt":"2008-03-31T21:22:26","slug":"what-is-good-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jrtwine.com\/blog\/what-is-good-software\/","title":{"rendered":"What is &#8220;good software&#8221;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I am reading a thread on <strong><em>WorseThanFailure<\/em><\/strong> (<a href=\"http:\/\/worsethanfailure.com\/Comments\/Guest_Article_0x3a__Our_Dirty_Little_Secret.aspx\">Our Dirty Little Secret<\/a>), I see a post by &#8220;VGR&#8221; that states that companies do not recognize &#8220;good software&#8221;, but rather &#8220;finished&#8221; or &#8220;not finished.&#8221;\u00a0 This is an interesting point.<\/p>\n<p>But a question I would like answered is this &#8211; what exactly is <strong><em>good software<\/em><\/strong>?\u00a0 How does one decide that <em>this<\/em> bit of software is good and <em>that<\/em> one is bad?\u00a0 More to the point, since software starts with source code, how do you decide that <em>this<\/em> code is good and <em>that <\/em>code is bad?<\/p>\n<p>I have grappled with this question myself, as I am sure others have as well.\u00a0 I believe I know what <em>good code<\/em> is.\u00a0 My education, experience and wisdom are my guides.\u00a0 But what I believe to be good code is different from what another developer\u00a0believes to be good code.\u00a0 Another less seasoned developer may think something else, just as a more seasoned developer might.\u00a0 So who is correct?<\/p>\n<p>I believe that part of the\u00a0problem with software today is that there are no\u00a0common (or otherwise shared)\u00a0<em>standards<\/em> for what constitutes good software (or good code which is where good software starts), excluding obvious\u00a0things like &#8220;does not crash&#8221; or &#8220;does not corrupt data.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So <strong><em>what<\/em><\/strong> exactly makes good code?\u00a0 Is it&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Code that just <em>works<\/em>, or code that\u00a0<em>works well<\/em>?\u00a0 And what is the difference, if any?<\/li>\n<li>Code that is Declarative, Imperative\/Procedural, or just well commented?\u00a0 Is it a combination of the two or all three?\u00a0 And to that point, what exactly does &#8220;well commented&#8221; mean, anyway?<\/li>\n<li>Code that uses encapsulation as much as possible, because (of course) encapsulation is &#8220;a good thing&#8221;, or is it code that selectively decides when it is advantageous to do so?<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>???<\/em><\/strong> What else?\u00a0 I am sure that many other developers have other criteria&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For each of the items above, you can find developers that will argue for one thing or the other.\u00a0 Worse, you can also find <em>academics<\/em> with relatively little\u00a0to no real-world development experience doing the same, cultivating other future developers with the same thoughts!\u00a0 This is good or bad depending on your point of view.<\/p>\n<p>So how do we solve the problem?\u00a0 I am not sure that it can be solved.\u00a0 Software development is both art <strong><em>and<\/em><\/strong> science, and that <em>art<\/em> part is the killer.\u00a0 Art is very subjective, and one person&#8217;s Picasso is another person&#8217;s misaligned jigsaw puzzle.\u00a0 We may have to learn to all just get along here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I am reading a thread on WorseThanFailure (Our Dirty Little Secret), I see a post by &#8220;VGR&#8221; that states that companies do not recognize &#8220;good software&#8221;, but rather &#8220;finished&#8221; or &#8220;not finished.&#8221;\u00a0 This is an interesting point. But a question I would like answered is this &#8211; what exactly is good software?\u00a0 How does [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-developing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t<!-- All in One SEO 5.0.2.1 - aioseo.com -->\n\t<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As I am reading a thread on WorseThanFailure (Our Dirty Little Secret), I see a post by &quot;VGR&quot; that states that companies do not recognize &quot;good software&quot;, but rather &quot;finished&quot; or &quot;not finished.&quot; This is an interesting point. But a question I would like answered is this - what exactly is good software? 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