``Every now and then the code used "fancy" Perl features. Converting those parts was 10x, 100x, and sometimes up to 1000x slower.'' That is why, when I run an

``Every now and then the code used "fancy" Perl features. Converting those parts was 10x, 100x, and sometimes up to 1000x slower.'' That is why, when I run an engineering team, I constantly push back against "clever" or "fancy" stuff. Engineers love that stuff, eat it up. I get it, it's fun. But when they move on to something else and a mere mortal has to maintain, fix, or convert it, the cost of that clever stuff becomes apparent. I've had to be that mere mortal and I can assure you it is a miserable experience. I've often thought that one of the most useful things about me is that I'm not smart enough to be that clever, I like simple, obvious code. It's a little bit of a lie, I'm smart enough, sort of, to be that clever but it's a lot more work. And I know that any code that is more than 6 months, doesn't matter if I wrote it or someone else wrote it, it always feels like someone else wrote it. And man, do I love it when that someone else went for straightforward rather than clever.