[comboy]

Same experience, but I think it's going to change. As models get better, their context window keeps growing while mine stays the same.

To be clear, our context window can be really huge if you are living the project. But not if you are new to it or even getting back to it after a few years.

[MrMcCall]

Here's the secret to grokking a software project: a given codebase is not understandable without understanding how and why it was built; i.e. if you didn't build it, you're not going to understand why it is the way it is.

In theory, the codebase should be, as it is, understandable (and it is, with a great deal of rigorous study). In reality, that's simply not the case, not for any non-trivial software system.

[thfuran]

So your secret to understanding code is: Abandon hope all ye who enter here?

[MrMcCall]

Hard work is no secret, it's just avoided by slackers at all costs :-)

What I'm really saying is that our software development software is missing a very important dimension.

[marcosdumay]

Oh, you will understand why things were built. It's inevitable.

And all of that understanding will come from people complaining about you fixing a bug.

[gwervc]

Too bad most projects don't document any of those decisions.

[xnx]

LLMs might be a good argument for documenting more of the "why" in code comments.