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If this verbiage is only in the introduction, it will not carry much weight. People, and especially IT people like rules, that you can indiscriminately apply.

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If people claim to read a book and skip chapter 1, did they really read the book? I'd say no, they only read part of it. It's not the authors' fault that people skip a chapter that generally provides the context for reading the rest of the book. That's on them. Don't be foolish, learn the context of what you're reading before you read it. That is what should be encouraged.

My point is that people are better at remembering and applying specific rules. And it is my perception that people involved in software development like explicit rules. This is partly due to the exponential growth (and thus low level of experience) and also because it feels more objective.

“Code should be readable” is a higher level goal that is inevitably subjective, so it is harder to enforce than for instance, DRY.

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