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Comment by jwecker | Hacker News Reader

Similarly, in my experience great code solves a problem that would seem very difficult in a way that seems very obvious but usually only in retrospect, or as we're reading the code. A corollary would be code that reveals some truth about the system being coded that isn't obvious except in retrospect.

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This comment reminded me of the epiphany I had my sophomore year in college: that code is a literal (and physical in a sense) representation of an idea or system.

I know it seems trite.

But I had been programming for years, and I had grokked recursion and pointers, but up to that point I was always sort of thinking of programming as a means to an end, and somehow distinct from the task it was accomplishing. At this point I take it for granted that I can translate my thoughts into this or that programming language, but when I first realized the direct correlation it was like a bolt of lighting.

This is the key to effective programming. I like to measure what the code ENABLES both the end user, and the programmer in the future (design leverage) - not just what it DOES FOR the user in a literal way.

The code becomes more abstract, more of a model, and the software may become a 'tool'. (You'll find that as you program you will naturally refactor to a more abstract model and things will "click-in" and work the way you want it the first time)

Or, to turn it into a pithy cargo-cult statement: "Most code is scaffolding for your future code."

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