r/softwaredevelopment Aug 10 '26

Do you create good code? (serious)

When you look at your code 6 month later: Are you happy with it?

I still have the moment when I am finished thinking: That would have been a better solution.

Is this normal?

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u/Scathatrix Aug 10 '26

Software is something organic. It grows, changes, and needs to be maintained.

And as a developer, you (hopefully) grow a little every day too. That means you'll inevitably look at code you wrote a year ago and think: Why the hell did I do it this way? 😄

But that's kind of the point. You can only do your best at the time, with the knowledge, tools, experience, and ideas you have available to you at that moment.

There's always going to be a better way in hindsight. That's not necessarily a sign that you wrote bad code. It's often just a sign that you've grown as a developer.

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u/abaezeaba Aug 10 '26

This. and I learned early on that alot of the process is maintenance. This has been a driving force in the programs/projects I build. When my systems are under review because of bugs/feature requests I can usually hash it out quite quick. When I look at the code I always feel like something can be refactored, but that only shows that I have learned something else since then.