The problem highlighted by this article and the ensuing debate here is that most people in our industry (management and developers alike) talk about good code and bad code in purely subjective terms. Until we learn to talk objectively about the systems we build (where code is just one part of that system) in terms of function (what a system needs to do), performance (how "good" the system has to do the functions) and economics (the resource constraints in building the system) - you know, like proper engineers do, we'll never move forward. The ugly truth is that would appear that most banking systems are "good enough" - i.e. they are competitive in the environment operate in - despite the horrors that undoubtably exist in their implementation. I see a lot of talk about the consequences of "bad code" but few have the evidence to back it up. It is our responsibility as engineers to measure the performance of our systems in the _right_ way so it becomes painfully obvious where we should focus our efforts to improve things.