The point is fair enough, but to call this a tyranny seems a bit much. If one believes (as say that Literate Code movement does) that code alone isn't sufficie

The point is fair enough, but to call this a tyranny seems a bit much. If one believes (as say that Literate Code movement does) that code alone isn't sufficient to convey an author's intent, why should diffs alone, which mark changes in a codebase, be any different? Comprehensible commit messages and comments explaining the purpose of a method itself (and perhaps the mechanism around which a block of code functions if necessary) are no vice and go a long way to mitigate or counteract any such "tyranny".