> Half the code was written in a language you didn't understand. The other half was written using libraries you never heard of.
> As you waded through the slop, you browsed job postings and fantasized about leaving
Just because you didn't understand something or haven't heard about a library, doesn't mean its slop. How do you make sure your definition of "clean code" is not a slop to others?
I'll avoid trying to guess what the author meant, but I found it rather relatable. Some of these "rockstars" pick weird languages, niche database, esoteric frameworks and whatnot, not because they're needed, but because that's the rockstar thing to do at that moment. And then they leave and you're stuck managing a Cassandra database and a Rust application when everything else around you is MariaDB and Java, and you have to maintain an application in an abandoned JavaScript framework, even though dynamic frontend wasn't a requirement.
This is a guy who has 20 years of 1 year of experience. His blog includes his linkedin and github, just give it a look over.
Programming is for humans first. Cleanness and code quality is judged according to that.