The &quot;unreadable&quot; or &quot;annoying&quot; example from the article is only unreadable and annoying because the programmer was new to the project when he read the two offending lines of code.<p>I believe Stroustrup is correct that we&#x27;re all beginners at some point, but we quickly move up. It makes more sense to optimize for &quot;proficient, but not expert&quot; than to optimize for &quot;beginner,&quot; because more people are at the proficient level, and they stay there longer.<p>I agree that code shouldn&#x27;t be unnecessarily complex. But I would quit any project that constantly brought up &quot;but what if a programmer were brand new when they looked at this code?&quot; in reviews. Then again, if other programmers have the same reaction, perhaps the project really would be full of nothing but beginners.