[jorjordandan]

It is brilliant... but I think it's a false dichotomy. I'm sure code can be clever and easy to debug. If it's designed in a way that is impossible to debug is it really that clever? I've been using react and redux a lot lately, and the design patterns make the code much easier to debug, and I'm not experienced enough (and probably not even clever enough) to have written them myself. It's like saying that smart people always use big words and hard to parse sentences - it's more of a display of cleverness than actual cleverness.

[markbnj]

There's probably a specific name for this construction, but I don't know it. I'd place it in a category of statements that are not meant to be read as literally true in all cases, but use comedic exaggeration as a warning against a common misstep.

[digsmahler]

In my circle of peers, and perhaps beyond, we use "clever" as a pejorative. It roughly means what you said in the last sentence, "more of a display of cleverness than actual cleverness." In other words, calling a piece of code clever, indicates that it was made too complicated to easily grok. We also have an explicit goal of making code not clever.