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by sebmellen 59 days ago
While this is true to an extent, oftentimes the important context is not in the code but in the head of the writer. The code is just the fence in the Chesterton’s Fence analogy. And that is still non-fungible and will (presumably) forever be.

> There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
1 comments
throwaway13337 59 days ago
You're correct that it doesn't answer the why.

But it answers the what, how, and allows one-off features.

So the guy that wrote might (or might not) still have the edge with the why. But that's not the moat it used to be.

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sebmellen 59 days ago
In big companies, the why is 80% of the work. I could swear actual dev work is less than 20% of a “developer’s” job at a standard large (non-SV/FAANG/tech-first) company. The rest is holding a lot of really weird organization-specific context in your head to make the right decision.
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throwaway13337 59 days ago
With my own tiny company, I used to answer questions about my code to support. Supporting the support. I remember doing that when working at big companies too.

Now, my support asks claude about the codebase to answer those sorts of questions. He's better than my memory.

Maybe we've had different experiences.

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sebmellen 59 days ago
I love it. And no doubt, the smaller your company, the more profound the impact of “agentic” tooling can be.

But I am skeptical that people who have not seen a complex corporate environment understand how different it is.

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kakacik 59 days ago
> I could swear actual dev work is less than 20% of a “developer’s” job at a standard large (non-SV/FAANG/tech-first) company.

In banks its rather 10%, at least in mine is.

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