I agree I think Obfuscating and Golfing are unrelated to unreadable production code. One technique I was taught early on (in another programming language) is to write the comments first. Write in the comments what you are going to do in the code. It really helps to clarify your plans and to remember what that plan was after you've struggled through the early portions

Unreadble code often comes from unskilled coders, but not always. Some people just hate typing so much they make all their variable names 1 character. I like code that reads like poetry...