The third iteration thing is exactly what I was thinking when I read this thread. First attempt works, but it's pretty shoddy. Do it again and you get something better but still has room for improvement. By the third it's still not perfect but it's good enough to make you happy you did a good job.
My other benchmark of bad code is that you know it's bad when you have to hack it to add a new feature, and the only way to remedy that is to re-factor most, if not all, of your codebase.
I've had to do this a lot lately because I've not had chance to iterate. I know full well the code is bad. It works but it's not easily maintainable, and since it's in the context of a REST API there's a shitload of code we now have to duplicate - with minor differences - to add functionality I didn't have the foresight to plan from the start.
That of course is also the side effect of being given an entire project to do by yourself while the rest of your team does other things. The insight and assistance from colleagues or team-mates, or even friends if it comes to it, is just as valuable for writing good code. Knowledge has to come from somewhere.
My other benchmark of bad code is that you know it's bad when you have to hack it to add a new feature, and the only way to remedy that is to re-factor most, if not all, of your codebase.
I've had to do this a lot lately because I've not had chance to iterate. I know full well the code is bad. It works but it's not easily maintainable, and since it's in the context of a REST API there's a shitload of code we now have to duplicate - with minor differences - to add functionality I didn't have the foresight to plan from the start.
That of course is also the side effect of being given an entire project to do by yourself while the rest of your team does other things. The insight and assistance from colleagues or team-mates, or even friends if it comes to it, is just as valuable for writing good code. Knowledge has to come from somewhere.