alt Hacker NewsUsers typically don't read code, developers (of the software) do.
If it's not worth reading something where the writer didn't take the time to write it, by extension that means nobody read the code.
Which means nobody understands it, beyond the external behaviour they've tested.
I'd have some issues with using such software, at least where reliability matters. Blackbox testing only gets you so far.
But I guess as opposed to other types of writing, developers _do_ read generated code. At least as soon as something goes wrong.
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Key part is *where reliability matters*, there are not that many cases where it matters.
We tell stories of Therac 25 but 90% of software out there doesn’t kill people. Annoys people and wastes time yes, but reliability doesn’t matter as much.
E-mail, internet and networking, operations on floating point numbers are only kind of somewhat reliable. No one is saying they will not use email because it might not be delivered.
Developers do not in fact tend to read all the software they use. I have never once looked at the code for jq, nor would I ever want to (the worst thing I could learn about that contraption is that the code is beautiful, and then live out the rest of my days conflicted about my feelings about it). This "developers read code" thing is just special pleading.