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baksignal@animesh@mastodon.social (2026-06-03 16:37:54)
"Programming is building a mental model. It is not mechanical code production. The shared mental model in developers' minds is the real product. A program is "living" only while the team understands this theory. When programmers leave, it becomes "dead". Without the original theory, new maintainers treat software as a black box, creating patchwork fixes that cause side effects and architectural decay."

Absolute truth.

Originally from Peter Naur's "Programming as Theory Building" (1985)