[Opinion] Reading code is an essential skill
When dealing with any large system, 50% of our development effort goes into reading code. As a friend of mine, Jeff Barr says - "Reading code is an essential skill". As much as I agree with the post (which I do, strongly) as it provides a required base for understanding, simply reading is not the most effective path to understanding.
From Rewilding Software Engineering : Chapter 4 : Flexing those thinking muscles, which I'm writing with Tudor Girba - readability alone is insufficient; systems must be made "explainable" through multiple levers beyond code structure itself. The distinction between readability and explainability is key. Simply being able to read the code does not mean you understand the system. We need to build tools and approaches that make systems explainable, not just readable.
Originally published on LinkedIn.