Your code is lightweight. Any more?

Question

Hi all,

When we want to compliment someone on their programming code which is neat, clear and the file only takes a few kilobytes,
are there any good professional words that we can use to praise him / her?

The one that I used most is "Your code is lightweight."

But I had seen some people say "it's light-coded"

Please suggest yours . I am learning how to be professional.

Answer 1

"Expressive" is my recent favorite. As in: "You solved that problem in a concise and expressive manner."

Answer 2

I would suggest "clean".

Answer 3

"Elegant" is a good word to apply to code.

I like one of the meanings of "elegant" from WordNet: "simple and precise and lucid". Simple, because it has low complexity. Precise, because there is no room for error. Lucid, because it is clear, and easy for a human to understand.

Answer 4

Probably "Sexy"

Answer 5

The word 'beautiful' is certainly design-ish and pedantic, but it's still a nice word to describe code with anyway.

Answer 6

"Optimal/Optimum" in terms of clarity, maintainability, execution size, execution time, or any other factor that matters. Also "Efficient".

Answer 7

The terms I hear most often for this specific combination of things are "elegant," as Thomas suggested, and also "concise." If want to focus on the brevity of expression, I'd prefer "concise." If your focus is on how neatly the solution matches the problem without doing a lot of other futzing around, "elegant" is closer.

Answer 8

The already mentioned "elegant" is my favorite, but also "fluent" and "succinct."

Answer 9

My manager has said my code is bad ass, but that's probably him trying to appeal to a 21 year old, hehe.

Answer 10

"...clean, easy to read, easy to maintain and modify, human-engineered, efficient, and reliable..."

(from the cover of the programming classic Software Tools by Kernighan and Plaugher)

Answer 11

Your code is clean, concise, and most importantly: efficient.

Alternatively, you could say it's elegant or easy-to-follow.

Answer 12

I usually say it's "tight".

Answer 13

Things that come to my mind:

• elegant: your code reads well and does not appear forced

• perfect: from latin "perfectus", "done", does not need any more work

• normalized: your code has no redundant parts and can not be reduced further without it losing its functionality. A normalized class is a class with maximal cohesion and minimal coupling

Answer 14

I vote for 'runnable'

Answer 15

"Lean", but don't combine it with "and mean"; that's just cheesy.

Answer 16

• nice: If the code gets the work done it is supposed to in a reasonable way without WTFs - just the way any programmer with sanity and reason would write it.
• elegant: If it's nice and additionally very readable (regarding variable names, indent style, expressive use of language features) - just like the source of this answer.
• perfect / optimal: If it's elegant and additionally You can't imagine how to improve it - just as if it was written by yourself.
• neat / sexy: If it solves a common problem in a very uncommon, elegant way - just like You wish You HAD written it yourself.
• wow (not WoW): The positive comparative of neat. Your mind is blown away - You haven't seen such beautiful code in a time.
• concise: Can be used in combination with the terms nice through wow. If done so, it adds even more value to Your compliment.
• [programming language]ish/ic: Can also be used in combination with the terms nice through wow. Implies an expressive use of [programming language] specific features.
• 1337: The negative superlative of neat. One line of code that does computations worth a hundred lines of code - in opposite to neat and wow its only purpose is to show of the 1337ness of the author and is of no real value since it abuses readability, portability and a whole lot of well defined coding standards. There are very few exceptions to this.

• Skeetesque: The positive superlative of neat. The code snippet of Your coworker has proved P = NP, solved the Halting Problem and what not.

• efficient: A token of gratitude that the programmer spend a couple of minutes longer on a method implementation which therefore runs in O(n log n) instead of O(n²) either respecting the already reached hardware limit or pushing said one a little further away.

• clean, clear, well factored, ...: If the code isn't really good but it is OK and You would like to say some nice sounding things to Your coworker since there are so few possibilities to do so. (Note: You're going to rewrite the code snippet described with one of the listed terms when said coworker is out of office and explain that to him/her with some lame excuse.)
• runnable / commitable / acceptable: If the code has the same quality as if it were cealn / clear / well factored / ... but there is no need to tell that Your coworker in a roundabout way, since
  • A: He/She already heard some nice words form You in the last days / usually does a better job and therefore can take some harsh statements now.
  • B: He/She is a really good colleague of You and usually produces very good code but wasn't able to do so this time due to some external circumstances (e.g. a dead line). In this case it is advised to use the term "runnable" for an extra laugh.
• compilable: The negative superlative of runnable most often used under the same circumstances as in case "B" form the point above. However, You usually deal with a way better colleague / friend that usually produces even better code than in case "B". It is advised to use a phrase like "at least it compiles" for an even bigger laugh.
  Less often used when talking to a newbie. Here, it can serve the purpose to motivate a newbie who despairs about some hard problem.

Answer 17

One of the best compliments I got from an instructor was, "Your code is very concise but clear."

I also put in votes for "Elegant" and "Sexy".

Answer 18

I will give an answer that you probably don't want to hear.¹⁾

While I think it very admirable that you want to compliment others for their code, I think you should only give out compliments on code if you can actually read and judge it yourself. Otherwise, it can't really be an honest compliment, and I'm almost sure people will eventually notice.

Instead of learning complimentary adjectives by rote, read the code and choose adjectives that actually match the code. I dare say if you are, or have been, a programmer for some time, this shouldn't be too difficult.

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¹⁾ I don't mean to give any offense by this answer. It really only applies in the specific case where you'd compliment code with adjectives such as clean, elegant, well-structured, reduced to the max, etc. etc. without actually having looked at it closely.

Answer 19

I vote for "sharp".

Answer 20

Your code is pure craftsmanship.

Answer 21

I like "Clean" "Neat" when someone describes my code...

Answer 22

Obviously, this is not available in all languages, but code that is very 'pythonic' is usually a good thing. If it is written in python, and it actually looks like python, then it's probably close to perfect, not the least for being exactly the sort of code the interpreter is good at running. I expect other languages probably have similar language dependent.