<story><title>Clever code is probably the worst code you could write (2023)</title><url>https://read.engineerscodex.com/p/clever-code-is-probably-the-worst</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jawns</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s an old joke about the progression from junior to mid-level to senior developer:&lt;p&gt;Junior dev: My code is simple, straightforward, and easy to understand.&lt;p&gt;Mid-level dev: My code is clever, innovative, expressive, hyper-optimized, and ingenious.&lt;p&gt;Senior dev: My code is simple, straightforward, and easy to understand.&lt;p&gt;In software development, &amp;quot;clever&amp;quot; solutions are like poems. In the best poems, there are usually multiple layers of meaning, nuances and subtleties, some harder to tease out than others. Sometimes you have to sit with a poem for a while before you are able to truly drink it all in. To mid-level engineers, writing this sort of poetic code has an intoxicating appeal. It allows them to flaunt their talents, demonstrate their mastery of the language, and impress their colleagues with their ingenuity.&lt;p&gt;But more often than not, what is really needed is the code version of ordinary prose: straightforward, with a preference for clarity over succinctness, easy for others to understand, easy to edit, and with fewer surprises and deviations from convention than a poem. With prose, particular the sort of no-nonsense style found in wire news reports and explanatory journalism, the best work is easy for the reader to comprehend and lends itself to being edited. For instance, a skilled copy editor can condense it to fit, if need be.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TheCoelacanth</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s accurate, though. Junior devs often write overly complicated code because they don&amp;#x27;t really understand the problem they&amp;#x27;re trying to solve. Junior devs write unintentionally complex code, mid-level devs write intentionally complex code, senior devs write simple code.</text></comment>
<story><title>Clever code is probably the worst code you could write (2023)</title><url>https://read.engineerscodex.com/p/clever-code-is-probably-the-worst</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jawns</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s an old joke about the progression from junior to mid-level to senior developer:&lt;p&gt;Junior dev: My code is simple, straightforward, and easy to understand.&lt;p&gt;Mid-level dev: My code is clever, innovative, expressive, hyper-optimized, and ingenious.&lt;p&gt;Senior dev: My code is simple, straightforward, and easy to understand.&lt;p&gt;In software development, &amp;quot;clever&amp;quot; solutions are like poems. In the best poems, there are usually multiple layers of meaning, nuances and subtleties, some harder to tease out than others. Sometimes you have to sit with a poem for a while before you are able to truly drink it all in. To mid-level engineers, writing this sort of poetic code has an intoxicating appeal. It allows them to flaunt their talents, demonstrate their mastery of the language, and impress their colleagues with their ingenuity.&lt;p&gt;But more often than not, what is really needed is the code version of ordinary prose: straightforward, with a preference for clarity over succinctness, easy for others to understand, easy to edit, and with fewer surprises and deviations from convention than a poem. With prose, particular the sort of no-nonsense style found in wire news reports and explanatory journalism, the best work is easy for the reader to comprehend and lends itself to being edited. For instance, a skilled copy editor can condense it to fit, if need be.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>aidos</author><text>With a slight difference that junior dev tends be proud of the code they’re added while a senior will be proud of the code they’ve removed…</text></comment>