Re:Clear is better than clever [pdf]
by 5trokerac3 on Monday May 06, 2019 @02:14PM
(#19842157)
> I would expect a new hire to be familiar with it, or need time to become familiar with it
Which equals more overhead than is necessary. Elegance over accessibility is always more expensive, no matter the product. In my experience, folks who are obsessed with "perfect" code over readable code introduce the most long-lasting, destructive bugs, because, at best, nobody wants to and, at worst, nobody can decipher their stuff.
I don't know what shorthand nomenclature of insurance underwriting is, but if it's a standard part of insurance underwriting then I would expect a new hire to be familiar with it, or need time to become familiar with it.
If it's something separate like actual Gregg or Pitman shorthand English which the one underwriter used personally, unrelated to underwriting skills, then I wouldn't compare that to a programming language's built-in ternary operators.