Elegance kinda-sorta has to be token efficient in the micro and the macro. Easier & better LLM results.

Aesthetic code is clear & consistent and therefore more readable. Supposedly we’re all awesome at PR review and use an aggressive process of manual review now, so readability should be a priority.

LLMs have context windows and compress them arbitrarily, inconsistent or messy areas of code can be read and improperly weighted in any given session, code base cleanliness gives consistency of generation.

… LLMs or not, I simply can’t imagine making a large(r) pile of crap for myself to maintain & customers to use in their businesses is some grand engineering benefit over time. If those agents are so great make ‘em do the entire job and refactor tested utility into a digestible & defensible product.

I think these are separate things. I get the heuristic you’re applying, but with rigorous testing code quality doesn’t matter the same way anymore. Indeed, what is quality?