@codinghorror There was a large bit of code I wrote about ten years ago for what was then a personal work project. It was "clever" in a way that I really enjoyed while writing. It was only when it went from my personal project to a core library that hundreds of engineers at my company depended on that I realized that all that "cleverness" was antithetical to clarity.

I knew this when I was writing it, but dismissed those thoughts because I thought I'd be the only user.

Lesson learned

@codinghorror Coding, engineering, and mathematics are difficult precisely because they are a deeply human and artistic endeavor. There's no way around it.

The best programmers and engineers I know have a deeply nourished and cherished artistic side to themselves. I see a lot of people calling it their escape from work, but I actually think it's one of the most important aspects that makes us good *at* that work

Machines may be logical, but the expression of that logic is an art, and I love it

@codinghorror This is a great point.

I'd add to that if you're an experienced dev, your code still needs to be read _and understood_ by your teammates, who might be junior or new to the language, so nowadays I tend to write far simpler, longer code avoiding “neat tricks” of the language, even if it results in my code looking less “smart” and “idiomatic”. The same goes for technical writing, I'm avoiding idioms, colloquialisms, references etc, that non-native speakers might not understand.