Brent Yorgey spends some time thinking about good coding style:
What is good code style? You probably have some opinions about this. In fact, I’m willing to bet you might even have some very strong opinions about this; I know I do. Whether consciously or not, we tend to frame good coding practices as a moral issue. Following good coding practices makes us feel virtuous; ignoring them makes us feel guilty. I can guess that this is why Yom said “I don’t think I could bring myself to be satisfied with partial functions” [emphasis added]. And this is why we say “good code style”, not “optimal” or “rational” or “best practice” code style.
It’s an interesting post. There are some bits on competitive programming which don’t apply in general, but there’s a lot to unpack there.