Ever felt like you’re stuck in a never‑ending cut‑scene where the only way forward is to read a wall of comments that barely make sense?
Yeah, me too. I once spent an entire afternoon debugging a function that looked like a cryptic prophecy from The Matrix – “follow the white rabbit” … except the rabbit was a variable named x and the prophecy was a comment that said “TODO: fix this later.”
That day I swore I’d find the Holy Grail of code: code that tells its own story, no commentary required.
The Quest Begins (The “Why”)
It started on a rainy Tuesday. I was pairing with a junior dev who kept asking, “What does this do?” every few lines. I’d point to a comment and say, “See? It says it right there.” He nodded, then three minutes later asked the same question again. The comment had become a broken record – like listening to the same 5‑second loop in Groundhog Day.
