[anchochilis]

This was funny. But I've seen too much clean code written by people smarter than me to agree.

I actually think how "clean" your code is depends on lots of factors. Eg.

(a) Do you care if your coworkers find it easy to modify your code?

(b) Do you feel a sense of ownership over the code you're touching?

(c) Does your organization reward delivery speed without any checks for code quality? (eg. no culture of code review)

(d) Is the code a proof-of-concept that needs validation from users before further investment?

[kilgnad]

You're not dealing with the geniuses. You're likely just dealing with people smarter than you. I can assure you geniuses are rare, and people of the same intelligence level tend to gather so you can go through a career completely missing them depending on where you work. There's enough noise such that among these groups you won't notice the correlation.

Tbh the geniuses don't view their own code as shitty, to them it's quality. It's only viewed as shitty externally.