Decodering: Beauty in code

What makes us say that code is beautiful? Is it - as some have suggested - simplicity, brevity, readability, ingenuity or an indefinable elegance? In this talk I argue that these are enabling features, rather than fundamentals, of a central "aha!' moment.

Informally we can see this "aha!" as the moment we understand how function arises from form. This argument shifts "beauty" from being a property of code to being a reaction between coder and code, which is where it properly belongs. A sunset isn't itself "beautiful", it requires someone to witness it and experience beauty.

And we will explore several techniques of program construction that assist with creating those "aha!" moments, where the structure actively supports the mental processes that are, roughly speaking, analogs of proof construction. And we'll contrast these techniques and ideas with those that create friction.

Whether you agree with this thesis or not, this proves itself to be an insightful view of code construction.