Comment on Monday SOTD Thread, December 1st, 2025 (#902)
djundjila@sub.wetshaving.social 1 day agoI have a love/hate relationship with clever code. It’s fun in contests and quizzes, but in production, it’s maintenance poison. Dumb is boring, boring is good.
gcgallant@sub.wetshaving.social 1 day ago
Yes, I understand completely. For me, having responsibility for a large body of embedded systems software and computer electronics on a spacecraft, “clever” meant finding simple, elegant, easily understood, solutions to complex problems. The value of this is realized when an anomaly that results from an “unknown unknown” must be quickly understood and resolved. I also love the hackery involved with something like IOCCC, but that’s more of a game than anything else.