What is ‘Good Taste’ in Software Engineering? Insights from Hacker News
Software engineering discussions often center on technical correctness, but a deeper quality emerges in experienced developers: good taste. This concept, explored in a recent Hacker News discussion, reveals how mature engineers navigate the subjective aspects of code quality and team collaboration.
Beyond Technical Correctness
Good taste in software engineering differs from following best practices or writing syntactically correct code. It represents the ability to select appropriate engineering values for specific situations. Where junior developers might rigidly apply learned principles, those with good taste demonstrate flexibility in their approach.
One developer shared their experience helping friends with computer science assignments: “I remember the temptation to rewrite their code because I didn’t like the way it worked… I’d think about it again and realise that they weren’t idiots - their approach probably could work with a couple of adjustments.”
This insight reveals a key aspect of good taste: recognizing that multiple valid solutions exist for most problems.
The Flexibility Factor
Experienced engineers understand that engineering decisions involve trade-offs rather than absolute rights and wrongs. Good taste emerges from the ability to:
- Evaluate solutions within their specific context
- Recognize when personal preferences don’t align with project needs
- Adapt approaches based on team capabilities and constraints
- Balance competing priorities like performance, maintainability, and development speed
As one commenter noted: “Principles are a bit subjective and if you lean on them all the time without thought it’s a sort of laziness - you’re not really examining the situation and what it merits.”
Learning Through Diverse Experience
Good taste develops through exposure to varied codebases and problem domains. Developers who work across different projects, languages, and team structures build intuition about what works in different contexts.
One engineer described the value of contrasting experiences: “I worked at a company where my time was split between working on a bespoke platform for an older client and a generic platform… Seeing that contrast up close, and flipping between working on each one, was immensely useful.”
This exposure helps developers understand why certain approaches succeed or fail, moving beyond cargo-cult programming toward principled decision-making.
Effective Mentoring Through Questions
When working with junior developers, those with good taste avoid imposing their preferences directly. Instead, they use questioning techniques that promote learning:
“I don’t ever tell a junior that they are doing something in a less-than-optimal way. I always ask them why they’re doing it that way. At the end of each conversation, one of us has learned something.”
This Socratic approach serves multiple purposes:
- Avoids triggering defensive responses
- Reveals the reasoning behind implementation choices
- Creates learning opportunities for both parties
- Maintains respect for different perspectives
Recognizing Good Code
Developers with good taste often describe quality code as appearing deceptively simple. As one veteran programmer put it: “Good taste is writing code that looks so simple, everyone else says ‘pshaw, anyone could have written that!’”
This simplicity emerges from:
- Clear problem understanding
- Appropriate abstraction levels
- Consistent patterns throughout the codebase
- Solutions that feel inevitable rather than clever
The API Design Connection
Good taste particularly shines in API design, where decisions affect how other developers interact with your code. Quality APIs feel natural to use and extend, while poor ones create friction and confusion.
Developers build this intuition by using many different APIs and libraries, noting which ones feel pleasant to work with and which create obstacles. This experience translates into better design decisions in their own code.
Avoiding Common Pitfalls
Several behaviors indicate poor taste in software engineering:
Rigid adherence to principles: Applying rules without considering context or trade-offs
Premature optimization: Focusing on performance before understanding actual bottlenecks
Over-engineering: Adding complexity for theoretical future needs that may never materialize
Dismissing others’ approaches: Assuming different solutions are inherently inferior
Developing Your Own Taste
Building good taste requires intentional effort:
- Seek diverse experiences: Work on different types of projects and with various technologies
- Study quality codebases: Examine well-regarded open source projects to understand their design decisions
- Practice restraint: Resist the urge to immediately rewrite code you dislike
- Ask questions: Understand the reasoning behind unfamiliar approaches before judging them
- Reflect on outcomes: Analyze which decisions worked well and which caused problems over time
The Business Context
Good taste also involves understanding that technical excellence serves business goals. The most elegant solution isn’t always the right one if it doesn’t address user needs or project constraints.
Developers with good taste can distinguish between situations requiring quick solutions and those demanding long-term architectural thinking. They recognize when “good enough” truly is good enough.
Moving Forward
Good taste in software engineering represents the maturation from rule-following to principled decision-making. It emerges through experience, reflection, and genuine curiosity about different approaches to solving problems.
Rather than seeking universal truths about code quality, focus on building the judgment to select appropriate solutions for specific contexts. This flexibility, combined with technical competence, creates the foundation for truly effective software engineering.
The next time you encounter code that differs from your preferred style, pause before dismissing it. Ask yourself: what constraints or requirements might have led to this approach? This simple shift in perspective marks the beginning of developing better taste in software engineering.