[kstenerud]

That's sort of what I'm getting at. There are two kinds of smart programmers: Those who look for every opportunity to be clever, and those who are satisfied to build pedestrian solutions until clever code is called for.

If you're going to build a clever solution (which almost by definition increases cognitive load on anyone reading or maintaining the code), you'd better be able to defend your actions. Performance is never a problem until it's demonstrated to be a problem.

[wtetzner]

Yeah, I'd say only go for a non-obvious solution if the result is at least as readable and maintainable as the obvious solution.

[JoeAltmaier]

This wasn't a case of work-for-hire. This was an interview situation, where its exactly your cleverness that is being examined. What do you do then? Pretend to be dumb?