Reading source as primary literature
A short argument for treating code the way one treats a paper.
Most engineering documentation is downstream of the code it describes — a translation, often partial, sometimes wrong. Reading the source directly is slower per page, but the page is the original. The documentation is, at best, a reading of it.
Treat a codebase the way one treats a paper one is preparing to cite. Read the imports first, the types next, the entry points after that; skim the comments only after the shape is clear. The comments are helpful when the author is patient with their future self, and misleading when they are not.
The point is not asceticism. The point is that the code is the only artifact guaranteed to still be true. Everything else is a claim about it.