What Makes Good Code Good

By Tom Moertel Posted on July 24, 2026 Tags: code, good code, nature of code, purpose of code, source code, definitions, theory, philosophy Recall that the purpose of code is to instruct a computing device what to do in a form that is easy for the code’s intended audience to understand and maintain. Therefore, good code not only makes the device do what is wanted but also communicates three things: what the device was instructed to do, what the code’s authors intended the device to do, and why the code was written in the way that it was. This last part—the “why”—is crucial. It includes domain knowledge, design and coding choices, and the rationale for those choices. Without this “why” knowledge, code becomes harder for its audience to understand and maintain, especially in organizations with many programmers and large code repositories. Because logic is an unwieldy and sometimes unreliable vehicle for communicating anything but device instruction, good code usually communicates intent…