First - it's not about elegance. It's really about organizing, arranging, structuring the code so that the brain can handle it efficiently (which in turn gives

First - it's not about elegance. It's really about organizing, arranging, structuring the code so that the brain can handle it efficiently (which in turn gives you the nice properties of maintainability etc.). As a side effect, the brain also perceives it as elegant. Second - it is not one or the other. It needs to both work and be comprehensible. Delivering "non-elegant" code that works though, is job half done.