In my experience, the smartest people write code that is almost unbelievably simple, so simple you almost don't believe it works or someone didn't think of it before.
The goal of writing code is so other people can maintain it because you won't be there forever and you can't do it yourself.
I've seen this in C++ engineers in particular. There's a certain kind of person who comes to believe that complexity is a virtue. In a way they're bored and they alleviate that boredom by finding the dark corners of the standard and insist on using those features. It's also a way of demonstrating how smart and knowledgeable they are.
It's also a defensive measure as it makes it really hard to replace such people.
If such people are already running the aslyum (so to speak), you're probably going to have a bad time because (IME) they're just not receptive to the people argument or they dismiss it with a quip about anyone should be able to recite the C++ standard by heart.
The best yo ucan do is constantly ask questions like "do we need this?" and "is this the quickest way to do this?"
The goal of writing code is so other people can maintain it because you won't be there forever and you can't do it yourself.
I've seen this in C++ engineers in particular. There's a certain kind of person who comes to believe that complexity is a virtue. In a way they're bored and they alleviate that boredom by finding the dark corners of the standard and insist on using those features. It's also a way of demonstrating how smart and knowledgeable they are.
It's also a defensive measure as it makes it really hard to replace such people.
If such people are already running the aslyum (so to speak), you're probably going to have a bad time because (IME) they're just not receptive to the people argument or they dismiss it with a quip about anyone should be able to recite the C++ standard by heart.
The best yo ucan do is constantly ask questions like "do we need this?" and "is this the quickest way to do this?"