Good documentation also contains the "why" of the code, ie why it is the way it is and not one of the other possible ways to write the same code. That is information inherently not present in the code, and there would be no way for a LLM to figure it out after the fact.
Also, no "small" program is ever at risk of dying in the sense that Naur describes it. Worst case, you can re-read the code. The problem lies with the giant enterprise code bases of the 60s and 70s where thousands of people have worked on it over the years. Even if you did have good documentation, it would be hundreds of pages and reading it might be more work than just reading the code.
Also, no "small" program is ever at risk of dying in the sense that Naur describes it. Worst case, you can re-read the code. The problem lies with the giant enterprise code bases of the 60s and 70s where thousands of people have worked on it over the years. Even if you did have good documentation, it would be hundreds of pages and reading it might be more work than just reading the code.