Using the "Obfuscation" section of PM as an example, there are many of us that consider it an art as well as a craft. As such, they both have their place.

Perl as an art

Anything can be an art if you're good enough at it, and coding is no exception. This is more coding for coding's sake, or to keep one's skills honed during downtime, that allows us to create (and appreciate) truly clever obfuscated code. It's not meant for fully functional projects or production environments.

Perl as a craft

In this case, readability is key. With anything useful you build, it is very likely that, at some point, someone other than you will be maintaining it. In these cases (most of the time), you want to use an extra several lines of code to clearly illustrate what you're doing and how.

In reply to Re: Clever vs. Readable by EvanK
in thread Clever vs. Readable by Anonymous Monk

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