The silent death of Good Code

3 months ago

The author defines 'Good Code' as code that is easy to read, understand, maintain, and serves a specific purpose.
Good Code is rare due to the combination of talent, experience, passion, and time required to produce it.
The author's job as a Software Engineer is to create useful software, not necessarily to write 'Good Code'.
A colleague's initial Rust rewrite of a C codebase was functional but not 'Good Code'—it was hard to read and maintain.
After deeper understanding, the colleague rewrote the Rust code, resulting in high-quality, self-explanatory, and maintainable code.
The author reflects on how they used to write 'Good Code' frequently but now relies on coding agents, producing only 'acceptable' code.
The author mourns the decline of 'Good Code', comparing it to past shifts in fields like Assembly or Circuits where craftsmanship faded.

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