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That's a fair point, but I don't think the hierarchy is really about order. Perhaps you should review for readability first, at least sometimes. It's perfectly

That's a fair point, but I don't think the hierarchy is really about order. Perhaps you should review for readability first, at least sometimes. It's perfectly reasonable to ask for readability changes before continuing, but if reviewers stop there without going on to review for correctness then IMO they have failed to perform their duty. By contrast, if reviewing for correctness is all reviewers do, it's still better than if all they do is address readability (though better still if they do both). Doing X to facilitate Y doesn't necessarily mean X is more important than Y. Also, reviewing only for correctness is possible even with messy code; it's just a bit harder. I've reviewed code that would melt most programmers' brains, but it had to be structured the way it was because it was performance critical and/or had to fit within tight memory constraints. Dealing with that difficulty is part of the job.

monocasa 6y ago
I mean, this is a reply to a comment pointing out the that article says > each layer requires the previous one So at least the article thinks the hierarchy has order. And complex topics can be conveyed in a readable way, it's just a bit harder.
- notacoward 6y ago
  > the article thinks the hierarchy has order You probably think that was a great "checkmate" response but it's quite the opposite. No matter what the author meant, what I meant was quite clear. "Requires" does not necessarily refer to order. Requirements to do X after Y are not uncommon in real life. "If this happens, you must do that" is even codified into some laws. Requirements to do A optionally before B are not uncommon either. Think of a recipe with optional ingredients. You can add pepperoni before you bake a pizza, or not, but if you just add the pepperoni but don't bake you'll get a poor result. The pepperoni-adding requires the baking to produce a useful result, even though the order is reversed. Just as with code, lifting words out of context often produces a poor result. Reviewers should do better.

monocasa 6y ago

I mean, this is a reply to a comment pointing out the that article says > each layer requires the previous one So at least the article thinks the hierarchy has order. And complex topics can be conveyed in a readable way, it's just a bit harder.

notacoward 6y ago
> the article thinks the hierarchy has order You probably think that was a great "checkmate" response but it's quite the opposite. No matter what the author meant, what I meant was quite clear. "Requires" does not necessarily refer to order. Requirements to do X after Y are not uncommon in real life. "If this happens, you must do that" is even codified into some laws. Requirements to do A optionally before B are not uncommon either. Think of a recipe with optional ingredients. You can add pepperoni before you bake a pizza, or not, but if you just add the pepperoni but don't bake you'll get a poor result. The pepperoni-adding requires the baking to produce a useful result, even though the order is reversed. Just as with code, lifting words out of context often produces a poor result. Reviewers should do better.