It can sure but I remember having to spend 2hours(with a reference manual open) rewriting two lines of Perl script that a sub wrote (after a colleague told me that he couldn't understand the script) into two lines that a Perl beginner could understand..

I've never understood this notion that a professional codebase should be dumbed down to the level of the beginner. In most professions the neophyte must jump though hoops to reach mastery yet in programming we seem to have turned this idea on its head. Whatever happened to mastering your tools? A seasoned Perl veteran should be able to play a damned good round of golf.

We have too many different, interacting parts in most software systems these days to demand devs have pro-level expertise in every part they might have to deal with. If you can simplify the code (without significant harm to functionality) so that only 10% of your potential devs wouldn't understand it very well instead of only 10% would understand it well, you have just increased the value of the code.

It is an appeal to the artistry inherent in making the difficult as simple as possible.

Or the internalization of the managerial imperative for cheap labor, take your pick.

If the usage of more advanced concept helped reduce the number of lines, better maintainability or increased performance, you may have a point but notice that it was two lines replaced by two lines. I've always suspected the sub to increase artificially the difficulty of the code to ensure he was employed, this didn't work..

>Whatever happened to mastering your tools?

Companies prefer a churn of cheaper juniors happened.

I perled a bit in early 00s, and I never used any of those so-called advanced features, because it made the code totally unreadable.