Comment by AdieuToLogic
20 days ago
> A lot of how I form my thoughts is driven by writing code, and seeing it on screen, running into its limitations.
Two principles I have held for many years which I believe are relevant both to your sentiment and this thread are reproduced below. Hopefully they help.
First:
When making software, remember that it is a snapshot of
your understanding of the problem. It states to all,
including your future-self, your approach, clarity, and
appropriateness of the solution for the problem at hand.
Choose your statements wisely.
And:
Code answers what it does, how it does it, when it is used,
and who uses it. What it cannot answer is why it exists.
Comments accomplish this. If a developer cannot be bothered
with answering why the code exists, why bother to work with
them?
To your first point - so are my many markdown files that I tell Codex/Claude to keep updated while I’m doing my work including telling them to keep them updated with why I told them to do certain things. They have detailed documentation of my initial design goals and decisions that I wrote myself.
Actually those same markdown files answer the second question.
It's almost like programming via markdown.
Or like every tech lead has had to do when documenting specifications for a team…
> If a developer cannot be bothered with answering why the code exists, why bother to work with them?
Most people can't answer why they themselves exist, or justify why they are taking up resources rather than eating a bullet and relinquishing their body-matter.
According to the philosophy herein, they are therefore worthless and not worth interacting with, right?