I agree with your parent, and think you're trying to read it in an over-specific way, it's like saying "You can't compare writing and programming, because writing doesn't have comments."
The parent was making the point that, like writing, good and bad coding style is entirely subjective - necessarily so because many parts of it are simply conventional.
There are some specific constructions in programming that can be shown to be better than others through complexity theory, but even the guidelines we have for these aren't global optimums.
The parent was making the point that, like writing, good and bad coding style is entirely subjective - necessarily so because many parts of it are simply conventional.
There are some specific constructions in programming that can be shown to be better than others through complexity theory, but even the guidelines we have for these aren't global optimums.