> Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?
Easy: write it at 20, debug at 40.
Oops, I see my comment is nearly pointless now that I read to the end.
I completely disagree with the premise. The more I learn the less clever my code is. Coming up with a simple, straight forward solution is what shows true skill. Not cleverness -- not what people usually mean by "clever" code anyway.
I'm the dumb guy on my team. I'm also the boss. The main value I add is to get people to do dumb code. Most of the time. Once in a while there really is no other good answer, we have to do clever code.