What is code quality? According to the guys behind Crap4j it is the kind of code that makes you cry: This is crap! I think this is a pretty good definition. I have just read Implementation Patterns by Kent Beck. The main theme of this book is that the most important thing when writing good quality code is that it communicates well since code is read much more often than it is written…. and that the total cost of a piece of software is the sum of the initial cost of developing it and the cost of maintaining it. It often turns out that the maintenance cost is much higher than the initial cost. Hence good quality code is code that is easy to read and easy to maintain (i.e. add, remove and change functionality).
This is only one small aspect, so more will come…. I promise!