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"Do You Still Read the Code?" • zanlib

zanlib.dev · 3,007 words · saved by 1 readers

Avoiding interaction with the code is not progress.

14 September 2026 There is considerable difference between that question and a more innocuous “do you read the code?” The addition of still smuggles with it a theory of progress: reading code is something on its way out, like memorising phone numbers or unfolding paper maps, and the asker seems to want to know if you by chance aren’t one of the obscurantists still clinging to the old ways. I use AI extensively, and I read what it produces. This is a deliberate choice about how I want to develop software, at least at my job, where I’m expected to be reasonably responsible for the code that…

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