It's tempting because that's how we build our skills. You must abuse a tool to understand it, and know when to not use it. Unfortunately in professional conte

It's tempting because that's how we build our skills. You must abuse a tool to understand it, and know when to not use it. Unfortunately in professional contexts, many of us do that learning on the job, exhausting out a turbulent jet wake of too-clever code, upsetting those who follow. Coming across CRTP for the first time is either an upsetting detour or a fascinating David Foster Wallace style WTF-inducing endnote that you must consume before continuing. You appreciate this dynamic more as you play out different roles, both producing and consuming. Some languages try to interdict this state of affairs, shielding us from each other, but the more fun languages let us burn ourselves and our colleagues and finally learn restraint in ways you never learn in languages with training wheels.