Hey friends,

Phase 1 of the Holidays is complete, and my pie quota has been met (for the time being)... sᴏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ғᴏᴏᴅ...

Thinking Too Hard 🤔

Sean Goedecke recently asked, "What is good taste in software?" with the definition of taste as the "ability to adopt the set of engineering values that fit your current project."

This got me thinking about taste in coding. We normally see taste applied to the traditionally creative fields; in fact, I recently did a whole talk about it. But coding is creative, right? If creativity is a mode of thinking rather than a talent, then yes, coding is absolutely creative.

So what constitutes coding taste? Sean says it's your subjective prioritisation of coding values—picking the right approach for the right problem. To me, this feels like choosing the right medium for an art rendering, or the right narrative structure for a scene. It's tactical and decision-based. But does that encapsulate taste?

I think taste is more combinatorial rather than tactical. If you ask what separates "great" code from "good" code? The answer is broad, but it points to a "muchness" that extends beyond personal values. Great code would be elegant AND readable AND effective AND durable AND ... so much more.

I do not think taste in code is any different from taste elsewhere: an ephemeral and combinatorial sense of greatness as learned by exposure to a wide and varied field. It is a grand sense of pattern matching that encompasses everything about the work: the goal, the approach, the techniques used, and all of it.

Ultimately, this type of definition argy-bargy isn't truly productive, and I don't fully disagree with Sean's definition. I just think "taste" should have you going bigger and broader than narrower and focused.

Interesting Web Bits 🍜

Web Stuff

• Are you Team Rounded, or Team Superellipsed?
• More examples of home-cooked apps, this time from Gina Trapani.
• I think there's wisdom in Gall's Law but I think this is more of a generality than a universal truth. (I've seen some smart folks write some lovely AND complex systems from scratch!)
• Nadia Makarevich talks about state management in React in 2025 and why you might not need any!

Other Stuff

• "High achievers are perhaps the most insecure people among us. Competitive people behave the way they do because without those daily victories, they struggle to accept themselves...". Go read the full quote. It explains quite a few things!

Watch and Play

• I'm a sucker for slomo videos, watch this wine glass shatter from sound alone... 🔊🍷
• Combo Pool is a very satisfying marble-shooting-combo-flicker game.