Is Programming "epistemologically challenged"

I was reading this item from HN:

    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1489867

which refers to this article:

    http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html

entitled:

    How to Deconstruct Almost Anything --
    My Postmodern Adventure

I found it an interesting read, although I concede that many would not.

However, I found in it this statement:

  The Pseudo Politically Correct term that I would
  use to describe the mind set of postmodernism is
  "epistemologically challenged": a constitutional
  inability to adopt a reasonable way to tell the
  good stuff from the bad stuff.

That made me think.

In programming we often talk about "Good Code" and "Bad Code". Even code that works can be described as "Bad Code" when it's, well, when it's what, exactly? What is "Bad Code"?

I'm assuming for the moment that we're only talking about working code - code that performs a task and does so correctly. I'm even assuming we're talking about relatively efficient code, so that precludes, for example, the bogosort.

There is code that despite working, and despite being efficient, practising programmers would call "Bad Code". But how do we know?

"Good Code" should be clear as to its purpose, clear as to its operation, clear that it does what it's supposed to, and maintainable. But how do we assess these things? How does a novice gain the expertise to glance at code and either nod approvingly, or shudder.

What is "Good Code".

How can you tell?