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When reading The Go Programming Language, I come across the following sentence:

With sufficient effort, a good change can be accommodated without compromising what Fred Brooks called the ‘‘conceptual integrity’’ of the design but a bad change cannot, and a pernicious change trades simplicity for its shallow cousin, convenience.

I can't understand (...) but a bad change cannot, and a pernicious change (...)。 How to split this long sentence to make it more understandable?

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You can introduce three kinds of changes (to a program?)

  1. Good change: can be accommodated without compromising 'conceptual integrity'
  2. Bad change: cannot be accommodated without compromising 'conceptual integrity'
  3. Pernicious change: trades simplicity for its shallow cousin, convenience.

Simplified meaning:

  1. If you make a good change, it does not hurt the whole system.
  2. If you make a bad change, it hurts the system as a whole, no matter what adjustments you make afterwards.
  3. If you make a pernicious change, it makes some things more convenient, but some other things become less simple.
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