While the suggestions by other posters have much merit, to me, "clean code" is an elegant expression of an algorithm that stands by itself.

If I need to add comments, beyond describing the mechanism I'm implementing and its data structures, I'm writing dirt and it's time to take a break before I start burying bugs that'll take me days to dig out.

I stay away from a lot of Perl's MTOWTDI features because I'm not comfortable with their readability. I probably go way too far in that direction, but I prefer that my bricks be consistent and interchangeable more than being able to leap tall buildings at a single bound.

At my workplace, we have a requirement that all tools and data be reproducible, maintainable and recoverable for thirty years. That affects one's perspective considerably. :D