Clean code does not matter by itself; comprehensible code does. If you understand what you have you can reason about when it might go bad and avoid it; even if

Clean code does not matter by itself; comprehensible code does. If you understand what you have you can reason about when it might go bad and avoid it; even if it does fail you can understand why and fix it; you can see what you need to do to modify it in the future. That's what matters.