Post #901458
2026-04-02 14:36 UTC
Look this isn’t at all a defense of slop code, but it has me thinking — how much does code quality matter, and why?
It’s maintenance, right? We care about readability because we know we’ll have to make changes, fix bugs, etc.
But so … imagine a codebase that’s magically bug-free and feature-complete. (I’m aware this is a strawman - that’s the point, it’s a thought experiment.) Does it matter if this codebase is well-written? I’m not sure it does! (1/3)
Replies (2)
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@jacob@social.jacobian.org 2026-04-02 14:36
Code quality has always been ONE factor; it’s never been always the most important. Eg we often accept complex internals as the price for a clean external API; and we all write sloppy code for one-offs, prototypes, etc. So part of me accepts the “code quality doesn’t matter” argument. I can see a vision of agentic engineering with systems that prove correctness; if an agent produces code that is provably correct, maybe the quality really doesn’t matter! (2/5)
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@janl@narrativ.es 2026-04-02 14:45
@jacob@social.jacobian.org et tu brute?