I believe that if something is ever good, in a complete sense, then it will always be good. Human nature does not change, and our core needs change very little. If a meal was good 2000 years ago in Jesus' time, I think we would still find it good today.

One thing that bother s me about software development is that the field is often incredibly fad-driven. People write code, and two or three years later people think they need to rewrite everything to interface with whatever the new hotness is. Look at the state of javascript libraries/frameworks for a prime example of this code churn.

Is it possible to write good code? I think that if you target the right abstractions, then it most definitely is. And one example of this is the long-term success of the Netlib libraries, developed continuously for over 40 years as high quality linear algebra tools.

"Math has a long shelf life".