| > If there's someone on the team who can't understand a particular piece of code, he should just ask and learn. There's no reason to weigh someone down just to make an inexperienced, incompetent programmer or unwilling to learn something happy. Writing simple code isn't about allowing juniors to be "lazy". Simple code is a business decision. The easier it is to contribute to a codebase: * the more of your existing staff are able to contribute * the easier it is to hire people able to contribute * the cheaper your staffing costs * the quicker it is for new staff to contribute * the more resistant you are to staff turnover * the more resistant you are to changes in the relative
popularity of programming languages and libraries * the cheaper it is to pay off technical debt (because rewrites are easier) Lowest-common denominator code should be the rule, not the exception. There is definitely a place for "fancy" code, but it should be very carefully considered. |