SelfDocumentingCode

"Of course it's hard to understand. Why do you think they call it code?"

But it doesn't have to be cryptic; and it shouldn't be. The intelligent use of comments, meaningful variable names, defined constants, controlled use of globals, narrow function/subroutine interfaces (helps avoid duplicating code) and a consistent convention for code formatting all contribute to this ideal.

See the section on the topic at the Portland Pattern Repository http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SelfDocumentingCode