A unique feature of our field, not understood by outsiders, is that reading code is generally much harder than writing it. This surprising fact follows from three simple observations: 1. Writing is Engineering. 2. Reading is Reverse Engineering. 3. Reverse Engineering is harder than Engineering. The timeless advice: _"Don't document bad code, rewrite it"_ _-Brian Kernighan, Elements of Programming Style_ is a downstream consequence of this principle.