Curriculum Vitae

Codespeak is a provocative and timely examination of a subtle yet profound shift in programming culture: the disappearance of comments in code. Framed with Orwellian metaphor and grounded in real-world experience, this book explores how a combination of shame-based culture, influencer orthodoxy, and misapplied software dogma has led to a near-erasure of human communication within our code.

The book argues that the widespread aversion to comments—often presented as a mark of clean or professional code—is in fact a loss of collective memory and mentorship. Developers are increasingly told to let the code “speak for itself,” but this silence comes at a cost: onboarding slows, collaboration suffers, and the human memory is removed from our software.

Through historical context (from Knuth’s Literate Programming to Martin’s Clean Code), modern cultural analysis (anti-comment culture on Stack Overflow, Twitter, GitHub, YouTube), and a revivalist call to action (Python based, technical “how-to” portion of the book for comments in code), Codespeak presents a practical guide to writing good, intentional comments. It champions a renewed perspective where comments are not a failure of code but a gift to our fellow human readers—especially to those who were not present when the code was written.

This book fills a glaring void in technical literature. While many programming books mention comments in passing, none have devoted themselves entirely to this fundamental topic. Codespeak is for developers of all skill levels, technical educators, team leads, and especially those in the Python and open-source communities who are ready to build a more welcoming, readable, and human-centered future for software.

More than just a technical manual for commenting best-practices, Codespeak is a cultural critique and a call for change—written in a tone that’s part nerdy, a little dramatic, and entirely human. And, the best part is, when you are done reading it, you will be equipped to join the revolution and fight to restore the “Hello World” culture we all miss so much.