title: What does a good programmer's code look like?
body: <p>I am a hobbyist programmer (started with VBA to make excel quicker) and have been working with VB.NET / C#.NET and am trying to learn ADO.NET.</p>
  
  <p>A facet of programming that has always frustrated me is what does 'good' look like? I am not a professional so have little to compare against. What makes a better programmer? 
  Is it:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>They have a better understanding of
  all the objects / classes / methods
  in a given language?</li>
  <li>Their programs are more efficient?</li>
  <li>The design of their programs are much
  better in terms of better
  documentation, good choice of names
  for functions etc.?</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>Put another way, if I were to look at the code of a professional programmer, what is the first thing that I would notice about their code relative to mine? For example, I read books like 'Professional ASP.NET' by Wrox press. Are the code examples in that book 'world class'? Is that the pinnacle? Would any top-gun programmer look at that code and think it was good code?</p>