Ask HN: Have you ever seen a perfect codebase? In my experience even the best software projects have a few skeletons in their closet, blemishes on an otherwise well-built project. At the end of the day, we all have to build things that simply work and provide business value. Striving for perfect code is not the goal. But it does make me wonder: does perfect software even exist? If not, what's the gold standard? |
The best codebases I've worked on have had brilliant teams making sure they code was elegant and as close to perfection as I've seen, but that also got thrown in the trash because they were just coding for its own sake, without bringing any actual value to the end users.
I'm sure there are projects out there that do both product and engineering well. I just haven't seen it.
The hidden danger? ‘Skeletons in the closet’ - technical debt, brittle architecture, poor documentation - inflate Operating Costs over time. They erode ROI silently, turning what looked like a strong investment into a liability. A truly great codebase isn’t just functional; it’s engineered to minimize those skeletons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_th...
serious answer: too subjective to define perfect. we have all experienced the bikeshedded code review as either the bikeshedder or -ee. no one can agree what is perfect!
```
# main.py
if __name__=="__main__": print("This code is not useful")
```
/s