What does a good programmer's code look like? [closed]

Answer 1

I second the recommendation of Bob Martin's "Clean Code".

"Beautiful Code" was highly acclaimed a couple of years ago.

Any of McConnell's books are worth reading.

Perhaps "The Pragmatic Programmer" would be helpful, too.

%

Answer 2

Read the book Code Complete. This explains a lot of ideas about how to structure code and the the reasons for doing so. Reading it should short-circuit your time to aquiring the experience necessary to tell good from bad.

http://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Construction/dp/0735619670/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229267173&sr=8-1

Answer 3

1. It works
2. It has unit tests that prove that it works

The rest is icing...

Answer 4

The list below is not comprehensive, but these are the things that I thought of in considering your question.

• Good code is well-organized. Data and operations in classes fit together. There aren't extraneous dependencies between classes. It does not look like "spaghetti."

• Good code comments explain why things are done not what is done. The code itself explains what is done. The need for comments should be minimal.

• Good code uses meaningful naming conventions for all but the most transient of objects. the name of something is informative about when and how to use the object.

• Good code is well-tested. Tests serve as an executable specification of the code and examples of its use.

• Good code is not "clever". It does things in straightforward, obvious ways.

• Good code is developed in small, easy to read units of computation. These units are reused throughout the code.

I haven't read it yet, but the book I'm planning to read on this topic is Clean Code by Robert C. Martin.

Answer 5

This seems to be (should be) a FAQ. There is an ACM article about beautiful code recently. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on easy to read/understand. I'd qualifier this with "easy to read/understand by domain experts". Really good programmers tend to use the best algorithms (instead of naive easy to understand O(n^2) algorithms) for any given problems, which could be hard to follow, if you're not familiar with the algorithm, even if the good programmer gives a reference to the algorithm.

Nobody is perfect including good programmers but their code tend to strive for:

1. Correctness and efficiency with proven algorithms (instead of naive and adhoc hacks)
2. Clarity (comment for intent with reference to non-trivial algorithms)
3. Completeness to cover the basics (coding convention, versioning, documentation, unit tests etc.)
4. Succinctness (DRY)
5. Robustness (resilient to arbitrary input and disruption of change requests)

Answer 6

Good code is easy to understand, easy to maintain, and easy to add to. Ideally, it is also as efficient as possible without sacrificing other indicators.