I was wondering if it would get in the way of the mythical maintenance programmers trying to figure out what our programs do and how to modify them. This seems

I was wondering if it would get in the way of the mythical maintenance programmers trying to figure out what our programs do and how to modify them. This seems to me to be the point at which your idea goes strange. Why assume that maintenance programmers are interchangeable monkey-cogs with minimal understanding of software development and design? Perhaps we'd have better software if we treated maintenance and ongoing development as tasks requiring just as much, if not more, talent and knowledge and skill and practice as green field development. (I understand that soi disant architects might disagree, but I ignore architects who don't code.)