"The Code Is The Documentation" And Other Fairytales We Tell Ourselves

Let's expose the biggest, laziest lie in the entire software engineering industry: "You don't need documentation, just read the code, it's self-explanatory."
No, it is not self-explanatory. It is a chaotic maze of nested loops, temporary hotfixes from three years ago that became permanent, and variables named temp_data_v2_final.
The developers who write this stuff pretend they are creating beautiful, poetic software architecture. In reality, they are just building an invisible wall of job security. They know that if anyone else tries to touch that repository without them in the room, the whole production environment will instantly crash.
We have all been there. You onboard onto a new project, you open the README file, and the last update was in 2022. It tells you to install dependencies that are deprecated, connect to a database server that doesn't exist anymore, and run a setup script that throws 15 syntax errors.
When you ask the senior engineer for help, they give you that smug look and say: "Oh, yeah, we changed that last month. Just look at the commit history."
Stop treating project documentation like an afterthought. Writing code without documenting how it works isn't velocity. It is just leaving a digital landmine for the next developer who gets hired.
If your system's architecture exists only inside your head, you haven't built a robust system. You have just turned yourself into a human single point of failure.
If you are currently trying to reverse-engineer a legacy codebase with zero guidance, or if you want a physical warning sign to wear so people know your code is your business alone, check out the fresh engineering gear pinned in my profile bio.