[makeitdouble]

> Remove half of the signs

This is unironically a valid approach adopted in many places. That's the basic philosophy behind putting curves and road blocks to lower driving speed instead of imperative signs that people ignore.

Or making sure there's visibility in a turn instead of putting obnoxious warning signs etc.

[ff_]

I am all for improving the conditions so that signs can be removed (and this is valid with code too, e.g. a strong type system removes the need for a lot of documentation), but again we should not advocate for not documenting things, that's just asking for trouble.

And speaking of signs, we definitely don't have a good balance there either - in some places I experienced confusing situations where adding a few more signs could have helped.

[makeitdouble]

Not to make it too much on road signs, but just plain removing signs to force drivers to think through confusing situations is a thing:

https://bigthink.com/the-present/want-less-car-accidents-get...

The same can of course apply to code: there's many instances where someone will assume they understand a tricky bit of code because they read a well written comment. That's a bad sign, as the code probably had a lot more nuance that was not covered by the commenter. And then did they properly understand what the comment is saying ? we now have a two level readability problem.

In general, I sympathize with the approach that making it easier for people to understand shouldn't happen in comments. It's frustrating for the people reading the code, but we're paid professionals, and frustration is better to me than lack of understanding or glossing over the actual behavior (I'd trade fewer bugs for hurt feelings any day)

Comments should bring additional info that complements the code in a meta way (link to bug reports, design documents, discussion threads etc.)

[baby]

This ^

Update the road and make it safe and clear to use before removing the signs. Don’t tell road builders that they can avoid placing signs because most road builders don’t build clear roads.