You self-contradict with: > it seems strange that the author EVER thought that no comments should ever be needed - that seems like a strange and dogmatic concl

You self-contradict with: > it seems strange that the author EVER thought that no comments should ever be needed - that seems like a strange and dogmatic conclusion to have come to. But just before that you say: > There's lots of reasons to comment your code, but mostly I think code should be the documentation. Exactly that's why it's not at all strange. As you yourself write, code should be the documentation. Need to add comments => your code is unclear, and unclear code => bad code, and so instead of writing comments your time is better spent improving the code. The reality of course is that things need to be done and there's no time to fix all layers and have perfectly organized and readable code and therefore clarifying comments are needed. So no need to shame the author, it's just a typical progression from youthful maximalism to more mature shades of grey thinking.