http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=196455


in reply to If I *had* to pick, I'd pick:

What's the use of any of those qualities, if your program isn't producing the proper result?

So yes, I voted "correct". The other qualities are nice too, but worth nothing, when the first one, correctness, isn't satisfied.

All that is under the assumption that a program can be correct, that there is a solution, of course. An exception to this rule would be a program to play chess, for example. For such a case, "simple", "complete", "beautiful", "fast", all these would be more important than the holy grail, "correct". Then, it should merely have to produce acceptable results. Fast.