[rgoulter]

Worth comparing: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/02/portrait-of-n00b.htm... A "n00b" is scared of code, and wants as much help to understand it as possible. An "expert" already knows all they need to know to work on the code, and is more productive by putting as much code on the screen as they can.

Rather.. I think part of the point is, context matters. If the team is small, and the project is changing rapidly.. I think the needs and expectations for documentation are different than if the project or team is large and change is slow.

[codethief]

> an "expert"

Here's the problem: "Experts" (or "veterans" as the author calls them) are not created equal: There's the expert that already knows the code because she's worked on it countless times and already has a very detailed mental model of the code and there's the expert who's a very experienced programmer but has never seen the code before.

Even experts of the latter category appreciate good comments when they read code (surely not comments of the "n00b" kind portrayed in the article but comments nonetheless).