> The main argument appears to be that code is best dissected and understood, whereas literature is not? There is no reference to "best". The issue is why code

> The main argument appears to be that code is best dissected and understood, whereas literature is not? There is no reference to "best". The issue is why codebases are not read as often as developer culture has doggedly engrained that it should be. A codebase is not enjoyable as a narrative or mechanically instructive, as you have implied due to the large number of confounding factors and approaches available. Literature is primarily a form of communication, while code is primarily a means to perform. It does not fit as "useful" literature. Most of the time, reading a codebase is like reading a manual that's faded and torn and was 500 pages long (now 486). You might learn something, (fast inverse sqrt and such) but this is as incidentally useful as a pithy wisdom buried on page 322 of a VCR Manual. Nothing about why they wanted to specify 2 buttons in tandem to eject the cassette^ or why it has cooling off instructions^^. ^ The build system/factory was making a similar device that required 2 buttons so management saved some money. ^^ The rewinding mechanism tends to heat and kill the whole device for a time. The original rewinder didn't fit the case 4 weeks from production, so a primitive replacement from a vendor was used which has this problem.