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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.

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Re(2): If I *had* to pick, I'd pick:
by Arien (Pilgrim) on Sep 09, 2002 at 23:13 UTC
    I voted "correct". The other qualities are nice too, but worth nothing, when the first one, correctness, isn't satisfied.

    Incorrect can't be beautiful. Incorrect is just plain ugly to me.

    ("Beautiful" got my vote.)

    — Arien