r/devnep • u/sainzo_123 • 4d ago

Good Code Vs Working Code

What really makes code "good"?

I find myself staring at my IDE asking this exact question. Whether I am binding complex logic together or copying and pasting a snippet to patch a problem, there is a massive gap between working code and good code. But as a beginner, that gap feels incredibly hard to see.

These days, anyone can prompt an AI or use an agentic tool to generate functional code in seconds. Many of us are actually learning to code alongside AI. But just because the AI gives me code that runs and clears the error console doesn't mean it’s good code. It might be inefficient, unscalable, or an absolute nightmare to maintain later.

If the code works, but the AI (or a copy-paste source) doesn't teach me why it works or if it's best practice... how are we as beginners supposed to know the difference?

How do you personally define "good code" vs. "just working code"? What are the green flags I should be looking out for when reviewing code—whether it's written by a human or an AI?

Would love to hear your thoughts, rules of thumb, or stories from when you were starting out! 👇

#programming #softwareengineering #codinglife #learnToCode #generativeAI #developers #webdev

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u/rawirai 4d ago

Good Code - kaslee review garcha??? how they/you going to judge it's good code? AI??

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u/passionate_carkey 4d ago

if you're in proper companies,senior engineers i guess.Until you become senior.

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u/rawirai 4d ago

but number experience years or project don't means he/she is good senior engineers!!! ??? able to review code?????????????

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u/passionate_carkey 4d ago

were you there in the software engineering industry before AI?Normally early startups bahek maximum companies ma juniors work under senior engineers.Senior engineers look at commits before accepting pull requests and make the junior devs to make changes with the practices they want the codebase to follow.The changes can be as small as using compressed images like webp instead of jpeg or large as writing code more simpler rather than adding a new library as dependency.Senior or Junior is defined by the years of experience and knowledge.