I don't think it is black and white. Disentangling a heavily optimized "clever" codebase took me four weeks once. Refactoring did not only make it more understandable but also faster.
Seems like often "clever" is used with those quotes around it and really stand for "(accidentally) complicated".
Edit: From the article: 'I’m drawn to this distinction because I feel like our discussions of “clever code” are too constrained.'
Seems like often "clever" is used with those quotes around it and really stand for "(accidentally) complicated".
Edit: From the article: 'I’m drawn to this distinction because I feel like our discussions of “clever code” are too constrained.'