> Be honest: if you were dealing with a monstrously complicated spec would you rather read straightforward code with comments like, "Have to special case -0 her

> Be honest: if you were dealing with a monstrously complicated spec would you rather read straightforward code with comments like, "Have to special case -0 here, ugh" or see two lines that inexplicably make everything into base 15? Unquestionably the latter. Especially if its behavior matched the spec flawlessly. Doubly so if I can demonstrably break it by modifying/removing those two lines. I’m not totally sure why that’s controversial; of course, I understand that I might inherit this nonsense without the author around to explain themself but it sounds fun to be faced with that.