I think of it a bit like some huge regexs, you only arrive at the final point by building up to it in small (succinct) steps, and if you need to revisit it late

I think of it a bit like some huge regexs, you only arrive at the final point by building up to it in small (succinct) steps, and if you need to revisit it later, the old grey decompiler has to work harder. Perl coders I knew prided themselves on illegible but powerful one liners in a smug/elitist way ("Ha! You can't read that?? That'd be three lines in C. Ha idiot."). I prefer readable code.