The cause of programmatic pulchritude has been championed by many over the last forty years, from the Literate Programming boomlet of the seventies, the Architecture craze of the eighties, the Patterns Movement of the nineties, and even the burgeoning Software Crafts movement of the current decade, alas, to little apparent effect. Because, for all our aspirations to the contrary, the de-facto standard software architecture remains, alas, the ubiquitous and enduring “Big Ball of Mud” school of design.

What are the mudslingers doing right? Can a case for code-level hygiene, as opposed to mere functionality, be built on grounds other than mere aesthetic preference? Should one? Do the productivity claims for "clean" hold water?  Can a case be made for cleaner code on occupational safety grounds? Could it be that, in the end, code needs to be attractive for the same reasons flowers do? And in what guise is it software supposed to appear appealing in the first place?

This talk will examine whether there still (or was ever) a place for beauty in code in a bottom-line obsessed age.