The Naur paper seems to take as fact that even if motivated to learn, taught by the authors, and given good documentation… new developers just don’t pick up a c

The Naur paper seems to take as fact that even if motivated to learn, taught by the authors, and given good documentation… new developers just don’t pick up a complex system. The paper used a compiler for some language Y onto a target system X as an example. Personally, I don’t our ability to learn is that bad. Given time to come up to speed and motivation to read the code and understand it, and some good (consistent) coaching from people who fully understand the code, I believe new developers can be integrated into a complex codebase that they haven’t written. But this really draws a stark relief from the way software engineering on existing code is treated by every manager I’ve ever met, which is likened to reading a book once in a language you already know. One read through is enough to grok it. If we land somewhere closer to this source material on the spectrum I think that’s a win. I also look at my own thoughts on existing code. I’ve had the strong urge to refactor out old code I didn’t like… and that is interesting to me. Did I not like the style or just not understand it and want to make my own mental model my way? The idea that we’re just replacing engineers and they are just re-writing the same code with the same outcomes because we think of them as Lego blocks is interesting as well.