[javajosh]

The ability to read other people's code and understand the intent behind it is one of the highest attainments for a professional programmer. It requires two difficult, but important and related capabilities: first, that one be dispassionate enough about one's own views to even accept that other views exist, and second, that one be capable of understanding how code works from reading it (and perhaps interacting with it with a debugger or logging statements).

So, rather than lambast people for not being able to read code, perhaps we'd do better to praise those who are particularly good at it, and encourage them to share their insights, if they have them.

[wwweston]

This was the one that made me uncomfortable too -- I tend to think reading code is just generally hard, but it occurs to me that if I am The Illiterate, that's exactly what I'd think.

[Glyptodon]

When it comes to this one I don't find it so much hard as time consuming.

I think regardless of our ability to do so, often times figuring out someone else's code feels like a horrible pit of unproductivity.