There is often a world of a difference between code hard to read because it tries to solve a complex problem or is written in a paradigm I haven't learned yet,

There is often a world of a difference between code hard to read because it tries to solve a complex problem or is written in a paradigm I haven't learned yet, and code hard to read, because its author was just plain sloppy, and didn't properly care about naming or decomposition. Distinguishing between these two cases is a matter of enough experience.