Is there such a thing as "good code"?

I used to obsess over writing "good code." You know the perfectly structured classes, clever design patterns, spending hours debating whether to use a factory or a builder. Then one day, I watched a colleague ship a hacky script that increased our conversion rate by 20%. My beautiful, untested feature? Still sitting in a branch somewhere.

That's when it hit me: maybe we're thinking about this all wrong.

The Code Doesn't Matter (As Much As We Think) ​

Here's an uncomfortable truth I've learned after years in this industry: nobody cares about your code. Not your users, not your CEO, not even your future self six months from now. What they care about is whether the thing works and whether it delivers value.

I remember spending three days refactoring a payment module at Brassbell to be "more elegant." Meanwhile, our competitor launched a similar feature with what I'm sure was terrible code, and they got three new hotel clients before we even deployed. Their customers didn't care that their dependency injection was messy.

What Actually Matters ​

Let me be clear, I'm not saying we should write garbage. But I've noticed that successful projects share a few things, and pristine code architecture isn't usually one of them:

Getting stuff out the door quickly. That MVP you're embarrassed about? Ship it. You'll learn more from real users in a week than from six months of planning.

Making the business sustainable. I've seen elegant codebases at failed startups and spaghetti monsters at thriving SaaS companies. When I was at Afaq working on Rafed ERP, some of the most critical NGO operations ran on code that would make any developer cringe - but it processed thousands of transactions daily without fail.

Keeping customers happy. Users don't see your code. They see features that either work or don't. A clunky feature that solves their problem beats a beautifully architected one that doesn't.

The Optimization Trap ​

Oh man, this one gets me every time. How many times have you seen someone optimize code that handles 100 requests a day because "what if we scale?" I've been guilty of this myself.

At Prismatecs, I spent a week implementing a fancy caching system for a client's dashboard. Turns out, their bottleneck was a completely different service - a poorly indexed database query - and my optimization saved us a grand total of... nothing. That week could've been spent on features the client was actually asking for.

Here's my rule now: measure first, optimize later. And honestly? Most of the time "later" never comes because the simple solution works just fine.

But Here's the Thing About Technical Debt ​

Now, here's where I need to add some nuance to this discussion. While I'm advocating for pragmatism, we can't ignore technical debt. It's like credit card debt - a little bit can be strategic, too much will crush you.

I learned this the hard way working on legacy codebases. At one point, we had a jQuery spaghetti monster that made adding a simple form field take two days. Not because the feature was complex, but because nobody could figure out which of the 15 event handlers would fire, or in what order.

Technical debt compounds. That "quick fix" you did six months ago? Now it's preventing you from upgrading your PHP version. That database table without proper indexes? It's why your queries are timing out.

Set a debt ceiling. Just like financial debt, you need limits. We started dedicating 20% of our sprint to paying down technical debt. Not huge refactoring projects - just consistent, small improvements.

Track the painful parts. Keep a list of what's actually slowing you down. Is it the test suite that takes forever? The deployment process that's entirely manual? Fix what hurts most first.

Finding the Sweet Spot ​

Before you think I've gone completely rogue, let me clarify. There's a balance here. I've worked on codebases that were such disasters that adding a simple feature took weeks. That's not good either.

Here's what I've found works:

Be pragmatic about principles. SOLID is great for your core business logic. For that one-off data migration script? Just get it done.

Refactor as you go. When you're working on a feature and the code is painful, clean it up then. Don't schedule "refactoring sprints" - they never happen anyway.

Focus on the painful stuff. Is your test suite taking 45 minutes to run? Fix that. Is there a class with 500 lines of code that does too much? Break it up. But don't get caught up in making everything "perfect."

Document the why, not the what. When you do have to write that hacky solution, leave a comment explaining why. Future you (or your teammate) will thank you.

Doing the Work Right ​

Here's something I've learned: there's a difference between perfect code and right code. Right code:

• Solves the actual problem - Not the problem you think you might have someday
• Is maintainable enough - Your teammates can understand and modify it without wanting to quit
• Has tests for the critical paths - You don't need 100% coverage, but that payment processing better be tested
• Can be deployed confidently - Whether that's through CI/CD or a well-documented manual process

When I worked on Redot, my Laravel scaffold side project, I initially tried to make it handle every possible use case. Then I realized: most developers just needed something that worked for 80% of their needs. So I focused on making that 80% rock solid instead of chasing perfection.

Time Is Everything ​

This might sound harsh, but every hour you spend making your code "cleaner" is an hour you're not spending on something that could actually move the needle. And time is the one thing we can't get back.

I've started thinking about it like this: if I have 40 hours this week, how do I use them to create the most value? Sometimes that means writing quick and dirty JavaScript to test an idea. Sometimes it means carefully architecting a critical Go microservice. The key is knowing the difference.

The Bottom Line ​

Look, I still care about code quality. I still write tests (most of the time). I still try to name my SQL tables something meaningful. But I've stopped treating code like it's some sacred artifact.

Code is a tool. It's a means to an end. And that end is delivering value - whether that's helping NGOs manage their operations more efficiently, or making hotel management smoother. Once I accepted that, I became both a happier developer and, ironically, a more effective one.

The next time you're agonizing over whether your code is "good enough," ask yourself instead: "Is this solving the right problem?" and "Am I creating or managing technical debt responsibly?" Because in the end, those are the questions that really matter.

Ship it. Learn from it. Make it better. Repeat.