Readability beats clever one-liners — every time

Python rewards expressive code, which tempts us to cram logic into a single clever line. The problem is that code is read far more often than it is written.

The hidden cost

A nested comprehension with two conditions and a ternary saves three lines today and costs ten minutes of squinting next month — usually by someone who is not you.

A simple test

If you would need a comment to explain a one-liner, that is a signal to expand it into named steps instead. The names become the explanation.

Clever has its place in tight inner loops. For everything else, optimize for the reader. Boring code is a feature.