Armin Ronacher writes that the shared language of a software project is not code or documentation, but the common understanding of concepts, boundaries, and ownership. He notes that this understanding lives in code reviews, conversations, and the experience of explaining changes.
Before AI agents, modifying another team's storage layer required reading their code and coordinating with dependent services. Ronacher argues that while this process was slow and wasteful, it also served a critical function by synchronizing people and ensuring mutual agreement on how the system worked.