This, I have very rapidly found myself writing code which only very occasionally uses something fancy and otherwise generally opt for the most plain, boring and

This, I have very rapidly found myself writing code which only very occasionally uses something fancy and otherwise generally opt for the most plain, boring and straightforward code. Internally, I describe the code as idiot proof. Putting it more kindly, my litmus test for my own code is "will a 5 year old understand this?". In the many instances where I have since returned to my code to maintain it, I am often grateful for every less minute I spend reunderstanding all my own code. To use your analogy of engineers being like authors, as a teenager, I would often find every excuse to use some exciting sentence structure or long word - doing so made me feel authoritative and clever. But once reading more, you find that some of the most powerful, and clever, writing is concise and plain. Be Hemingway, not Nabokov.* *not to say Nabokov wasn't clever.