"When an engineer builds a building, it's very well built, but it's so ugly that the people tear it down. When an architect builds a building, it's very beautiful, but it falls down" - difference between systems engineer and systems architect

You must combine both, but the latter (beauty) is less important.

Beauty is less important? Tell that to the client.

@sterex the client doesn't see the code. This quote is geared towards programmers and the code they write, not really the UI 😊

@host Agreed. But ultimately, who are you writing the code for?

@sterex You're proving my point lol. The code should be well-built before its "pretty" (a tad bit subjective). It is important for the code to look good but it's more important that it doesn't fall apart 😄

I gotta agree with @sterex , I think this analogy proves they are equally important because without both, you end up with a crumbled building.

@aymswick The extremes here are solid construction and ugly OR bound to break and pretty. Of course, it's ideal to be somewhere in the middle but if you had to lean one way, would you lean towards good code that won't fall apart or poor code that's ready to collapse? The trade off (in this analogy) is that the solid code isn't as aesthetically pleasing as the shit code lol

@host I honestly don't think it's necessary or even wise to make that trade-off anymore, as an artist turned software dev I have to spend and even amount of time on function and design because user intuition becomes increasingly crucial as we move toward more subtle, invisible interfaces. Good software works well and impresses developers, great software works well and captivates all its users.

@aymswick True. If I'm reviewing, I don't accept code that just works - it has to be clean and use best practices.

Anyone can write code that works, but code that's easy to understand and maintainable, that's the art behind the code.