Only Code Has Value?: Even the best-written code can’t reveal why it’s doing what it’s doing.

A recent conversation about development methodologies turned to the relative value of various artifacts produced during the development process, and the person I was talking with said: the code has "always been the only artifact that matters. It’s just that we’re only now coming to recognize that." My reaction to this, not expressed at that time, was twofold. First, I got quite a sense of déjà-vu since it hearkened back to my time as an undergraduate and memories of many heated discussions about whether code was self-documenting. Second, I thought of several instances from recent experience in which the code alone simply was not enough to understand why the system was architected in a particular way.