Personally I've never seen a truly great elegant system. The real world is messy, ugly, full of edge cases, and convoluted. An elegant solution will solve 70%

Personally I've never seen a truly great elegant system. The real world is messy, ugly, full of edge cases, and convoluted. An elegant solution will solve 70% maybe 80% of the problem, but never all of it. Realy great engineering, which I feel I have yet to achieve, is managing that complexity and this edge cases and the mess that is the "real world" in a way that is maintainable and manageable and works for all.