Got told my code was 'too clever' and it stung until it clicked

I was working on a little Python script for my side project inventory tracker and showed it to a buddy who does this for a living. He said, "If I have to draw a map to follow your logic, you already lost," and honestly that hit harder than any bug report. I spent the next afternoon rewriting it with plain variable names and simple if statements, and now I'm wondering, has anyone else had to unlearn showing off with fancy one-liners just to make things easier to read?

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alice_allen516d agoTop Commenter

So how do you tell the difference between "clever" code that's actually good and stuff that's just showing off? That's the part I still wrestle with. I've seen people defend spaghetti logic as "smart" when it really just makes everyone else pay for their ego.