Your second function does more work and covers more cases certainly but could also be written less confusingly to indicate the intent. If I encountered your sec

Your second function does more work and covers more cases certainly but could also be written less confusingly to indicate the intent. If I encountered your second function in a code review I would at a minimum be asking you to add comments to clarify to the reader what is happening. When the article talks about bad writing they aren't suggesting that "simpler" is better. They are suggesting that "clarity" is better. By all means cover the edge cases but don't construct the legal language so it looks obfuscated INTERCAL.