[cyrusradfar]

The metaphor I'd use is, can you understand the a story if you don't read it in the original language? Code is a language that describes the function.

I want to say, I've lived through the time (briefly) where folks felt if you didn't understand the memory management or, even assembly, level ops of code, you're not going to be able to make it great.

High level languages, obviously, are a counter-argument that demonstrate that you don't necessarily need to understand all the details to deliver an differentiable experience.

Personally, I can get pretty far with a high-level mental model and deeper model of key high-throughput areas in the system. Most individuals aren't optimizing a system, they're building on top of a core innovation.

At the core you need to understand the system.

Code is A language that describes it but there's others and arguably, in a lot of cases, a nice visual language goes much further for our minds to operate on.

[mikaelaast]

Yes, and I like the points you are making. I feel like the mental models we make are exercises in a purer form of knowledge building than the code artifacts we produce. A kind of understanding that is liberated from the confines of languages.