Reading code instead of writing code: The underestimated senior discipline
4 hours ago
- #code-reading
- #LLMs
- #software-development
- Joel Spolsky's 2000 essay criticized rewriting code over reading it, warning it's a costly strategic mistake.
- Reading code is harder than writing due to lost context, requiring time and concentration to reconstruct mental models.
- LLMs exacerbate the asymmetry: generating code is now cheap and fast, but understanding it remains slow and human-limited.
- The shift leads to bottlenecks in code review, where large AI-generated pull requests reduce reviews to ceremonial approvals.
- Relying solely on AI for code generation without reading creates a dependency spiral, eroding team sovereignty over the codebase.