Code Is Crap

The article argues that code quality can be measured in practical business terms by combining complexity and test coverage into a simple risk signal, helping teams identify code that is expensive, fragile, and harder to change. For CIOs and technology leaders, the strategic implication is that poor code hygiene directly increases delivery risk, slows modernization, and raises long-term maintenance costs, making automated code-quality metrics a useful governance tool for engineering and portfolio decisions. It also reinforces that test coverage alone is not enough; organizations need to track maintainability and risk indicators to improve the reliability and velocity of IT delivery.