What does 'readability over cleverness' mean in coding practice?

• A. Prefer concise, clever constructs even if they are hard to read.
• B. Readability over cleverness means write clear, straightforward code, even if it takes more lines.
• C. Readability is subjective and should be sacrificed for speed.
• D. Clever code can replace the need for documentation.

Answer: (B)

Readability over cleverness means code should be easy to read and understand, even if that means it isn’t the most compact or trickiest solution. The goal is for someone else (or you in six months) to follow what the code does without getting lost in clever shortcuts or hard-to-parse one-liners. Clear names, simple control flow, and well-structured functions make maintenance, debugging, and collaboration much easier. So the idea is to write clear, straightforward code, even if it takes more lines.

The other ideas pull you toward tricks that are hard to grasp at a glance, or suggest speed or minimizing documentation at the expense of clarity, which often leads to more bugs and longer debugging sessions later.