On the flip side, there's code that will never be easy to read. Many algorithms and data structures simply don't break down to anything that is easy to comprehe

On the flip side, there's code that will never be easy to read. Many algorithms and data structures simply don't break down to anything that is easy to comprehend. Like even something as freshman as mergesort falls in this category where you're sort of squinting and wincing trying to figure out how p, q and w relates to i, j, i0 and j0. Sure you can say let the PhD students write that code and put it in a library and we'll just worry about `sort(array, start, end)`, but that's just sweeping this reality under the rug. Truth is if you're not willing to venture into this territory of non-trivial algorithms once in a while, you're seriously hobbling what you're able to do. The trick is knowing when it's the right thing to do. It's the closest thing we've got to dark magic. Dangerous and unpredictable, certainly, but also immensely powerful. Entire industries are built around someone one day sitting down and developing a piece of non-trivial algorithm. The big data boom of a few years ago, block chains, machine learning, ...