Yes, I'd always want an expert to be the one handling my contracts, medical diagnosis, etc. But does that mean that they should be made as complex as possible so that ONLY an expert can understand it?

No. But then, I never suggested that. Requiring more than "a glance" is not the same as "complex as possible".

And suggesting that every program should be written so as to be understandable by the most inexpert of programmers is a crock.

Eg. There are some algorithms that are very cleanly and concisely described using recursion, that require verbose, intricate and vastly more complex descriptions when done without it.

But there are quite a few "programmers" -- including some I've encountered in quite senior positions with 'many years of experience' -- who simply cannot 'get' recursion. Avoiding recusion because there are some people that will never get it is ridiculous.

Finally, there is nothing "complex" or "difficult" about the ternary statement:

my $var = cond ? constantA : constantB;
[download]

I am curious to know who exactly you're responding to here.

The ternary operator is not overly advanced at all. Any Perl programmer who is even low-mid level advanced (at minimum) can see it in a heartbeat. If you haven't seen it before, it may often be seen multi-line like this:

$ans = 6 < 8 
    ? 'true' 
    : 'false';
[download]

..or even like this:

$ans = ( 6 < 8 ) 
    ? 'true' 
    : 'false';
[download]

for precedence sake (as shown in the man page). Going off as you have is ridiculous. You say "there are a lot of very good coders out there who can look at a bit of compact code they wrote 2 (sic) years ago and see it's (sic) purpose and complexities at a glance" and then you say "however most of us humble mortals need time to figure these things out...".

First, I am but a humble mortal, and I don't even consider myself a good coder, but I sure can remember this type of snippet with no question. Not only that, but I'm willing to bet that any one of my 'humble mortal' monks who have been around even as long as I have would know what this type of *idiom* looks like.

I don't normally call someone out like this, but wow, who are you trying to defend, and more importantly... do you realize who you're putting down?

ps. If you want something more simplistic, ask for it. If you *know* there is something more simplistic, why are you complaining... seems to me that if you know in advance, you must know for yourself.

what are you looking for... this?

if (a){
    b;
}
else {
    c;
}
[download]