Recently I repeatedly heard the phrases "beautiful"/"not beautiful" used to describe and grade a software design, a bugfix or a piece of existing code.
Personally, I didn't like it at all, as it seemed somehow simplistic, but I told to myself: be humble, don't judge, think before you speak... But then, out of the blue, I realized what disturbed me in that phrase! Let me present my argument.
Here is one - should we reject him in a code review because of his ugliness?
Why didn't I like the "beauty" argument? Because it's too easy, too general and too unspecific.
Software design, as an engineering effort, is an exercise in finding a right tradeoff between different vectors: performance and code readability, code quality and release deadlines, programming effort and importance of a feature, etc.
When we just fall back to the "beauty" criterion we are just ignoring the more complex reality behind our code. I'd even go as far and venture to say that it is the sign of an immature engineer.
Let me cite from a blog post*:
"- Mature engineers make their trade-offs explicit when making judgements and decisions."
Let me state it again - we are not looking for beauty when programming, we are trying to survive in a world full of trade-offs. And a mature engineer won't try to ignore that and lock himself up in an ivory tower. Let me cite from a blog post again*:
"The tl;dr on trade-offs is that everyone cuts corners, in every project. Immature engineers discover them in hindsight, disgusted. Mature engineers spell them out at the onset of a project, accept them and recognize them as part of good engineering."
Mammoths?
Have you seen the mammoths? They weren't beautiful**, not by any means! But they were optimally adapted to thrive in their habitat!
Here is one - should we reject him in a code review because of his ugliness?
Mathematics?
What about beauty in mathematics***? Isn't programming "mathematics done with other means"?
Isn't there the old adage among mathematicians that "if it's not beautiful, than it's probably wrong"? And des it apply to programming (via the argument that programming is "mathematics done with other means")?
Well, my response to that is: mathematics is pure, in the sense that it doesn't have to make any trade-offs.
Besides, I can't see much beauty in modern advanced mathematic like, for example, in proof of Fermat's theorem. Rather than that, it's just complicated and tedious. Looks like the low hanging fruit in mathematics has been already picked...
Update
A recent tweet expresses much the same sentiment:
Talking about “beautiful code” is a mistake. It elevates subjectivity and personal opinion.
— 🙊Christer Ericson (@ChristerEricson) March 7, 2022
What’s deemed good code should be driven by explainable good-faith “metrics” that relate to the purpose of the code: shipping good products on time; *team* productivity; simplicity; etc. https://t.co/nCgIoBECZ9
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** as a classic polish rock songtext stated (credits where credit is due!)
*** "there is some cold beauty in mathematics..." as Bertrand Russel said
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