If I go for simplicity, I can write code like this:
10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
But if I go for readability, I will prefer this:
1e43
On the other hand, 1000
is much more readable and simple than 1e3
unless you work with numbers in scientific notation all the time.
This is a degenerate example of much more general pattern you can find almost anywhere -- building something out of very simple blocks can quickly become unreadable/inefficient/bad in a lot of different ways. Generalizing and reusing, on the other hand, is harder at first ("wtf is e
?! did they mean to write 1343
?" someone might say), but can help a lot in athe long run.