WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.200 You know, I was doing a bit of a digital spring 00:00:02.200 --> 00:00:04.820 clean the other day, clearing off an old hard 00:00:04.820 --> 00:00:06.620 drive that I probably haven't touched in, I don't 00:00:06.620 --> 00:00:10.580 know, five or six years. And I stumbled into 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:14.140 this old software folder. I honestly couldn't 00:00:14.140 --> 00:00:16.899 even remember what the program did. But before 00:00:16.899 --> 00:00:19.000 I could click on anything or even try to figure 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:21.620 out the file structure, I saw it. You know, that 00:00:21.620 --> 00:00:23.920 one file sitting right at the top of the list, 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:27.280 just screaming at me in all capital letters. 00:00:27.460 --> 00:00:31.839 Let me guess. R -E -A -D -M -E. That's the one. 00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:37.780 Read me. Not instructions, not guide, just a 00:00:37.780 --> 00:00:41.539 command. Read me. It feels so aggressive, doesn't 00:00:41.539 --> 00:00:43.979 it? It is imperative. It's loud. Like the developer 00:00:43.979 --> 00:00:45.560 is reaching through the screen and grabbing you 00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:47.200 by the shoulders? And let's be honest, it's a 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:49.789 file that everyone sees, but... If we're being 00:00:49.789 --> 00:00:52.789 real, most people just completely ignore. Oh, 00:00:52.789 --> 00:00:55.090 absolutely. Oh, yeah. I'm so guilty of it. I 00:00:55.090 --> 00:00:56.909 usually just double click the application icon 00:00:56.909 --> 00:00:58.710 and hope for the best. If it breaks, then maybe 00:00:58.710 --> 00:01:00.509 I'll go look at it. Right. It's the last resort. 00:01:00.670 --> 00:01:04.790 But that moment got me thinking, why is it there? 00:01:05.230 --> 00:01:09.469 Why is it shouting? And how has this specific 00:01:09.469 --> 00:01:13.090 file survived from the days of massive mainframes 00:01:13.090 --> 00:01:15.870 all the way to, you know, the modern web? Well, 00:01:15.950 --> 00:01:18.560 it's about time someone stopped to ask. So today 00:01:18.560 --> 00:01:20.879 on The Deep Dive, we are stopping to actually 00:01:20.879 --> 00:01:24.359 read the RE -ED EME. It's funny you mention ignoring 00:01:24.359 --> 00:01:27.280 it because that file is, I mean, it's the cornerstone 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:29.560 of software documentation. It's the Rosetta Stone 00:01:29.560 --> 00:01:32.120 for understanding what you just downloaded. And 00:01:32.120 --> 00:01:33.819 we're going to unpack its history. And based 00:01:33.819 --> 00:01:35.799 on the research we pulled together, mostly from 00:01:35.799 --> 00:01:38.359 a really comprehensive Wikipedia breakdown, this 00:01:38.359 --> 00:01:41.659 story is. Well, it's wild. It involves Lewis 00:01:41.659 --> 00:01:44.400 Carroll, stacks of punch cards from the 70s, 00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:46.640 and the entire open source web. It really is 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:48.859 a journey through computing history, just disguised 00:01:48.859 --> 00:01:51.060 as a simple text file. Okay, so let's start with 00:01:51.060 --> 00:01:53.099 a mission statement. If I'm a developer in 1975 00:01:53.099 --> 00:01:56.739 or 2025, why am I creating this file? What is 00:01:56.739 --> 00:01:59.579 it actually for? At its most basic, the ReADME 00:01:59.579 --> 00:02:02.099 is an orientation device. Think of it like walking 00:02:02.099 --> 00:02:05.000 into a massive dark warehouse. You don't know 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:06.459 where the light switch is. You don't know where 00:02:06.459 --> 00:02:08.819 the exit is. And you don't know if there are 00:02:08.819 --> 00:02:11.939 holes in the floor. Exactly. The ReADME is the 00:02:11.939 --> 00:02:14.199 sign right at the entrance that hands you a flashlight 00:02:14.199 --> 00:02:17.300 and a map. It's the you are here sign for a directory. 00:02:17.560 --> 00:02:19.580 So it tells you what the software is, what all 00:02:19.580 --> 00:02:21.979 the other files are for, and crucially, what 00:02:21.979 --> 00:02:24.360 not to touch so you don't break everything. Precisely. 00:02:24.719 --> 00:02:26.560 And there's a kind of golden rule that goes with 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:28.740 it. Oh, what's that? It's the rule of thumb that 00:02:28.740 --> 00:02:32.419 every sysadmin knows by heart. If you are unfamiliar 00:02:32.419 --> 00:02:35.620 with the directory, you read this file before 00:02:35.620 --> 00:02:37.259 you run anything else. It's not a suggestion. 00:02:37.379 --> 00:02:39.599 It's a failsafe. Which brings us back to the 00:02:39.599 --> 00:02:44.919 name REHAD in all caps. Yeah. Is it? Just frustration 00:02:44.919 --> 00:02:47.340 is the developer basically saying, I know you're 00:02:47.340 --> 00:02:48.819 going to ignore this, so I'm just going to yell 00:02:48.819 --> 00:02:51.159 at you. It feels emotional, right? But it's actually 00:02:51.159 --> 00:02:53.819 purely technical. It's a hack. A hack. A really 00:02:53.819 --> 00:02:56.620 clever one. To understand why it screams, you 00:02:56.620 --> 00:02:59.180 have to go back to the early days of Unix systems. 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:01.919 Okay, set the scene. So imagine a terminal screen. 00:03:02.099 --> 00:03:05.919 No mouse, no icons, just lines of text. In those 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:08.360 early Unix environments, file names were pretty 00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:11.639 much all lowercase. Right, main .c, config .sus, 00:03:11.639 --> 00:03:13.319 that kind of thing. Exactly. It was just the 00:03:13.319 --> 00:03:16.099 culture. Everything was lowercase to save keystrokes. 00:03:17.060 --> 00:03:20.969 Now... Computers sort files based on something 00:03:20.969 --> 00:03:23.349 called ASCII order. The character codes. Yeah. 00:03:23.550 --> 00:03:26.729 And in the ASCII table, capital letters are sorted 00:03:26.729 --> 00:03:29.050 before lowercase letters. Oh, I think I see where 00:03:29.050 --> 00:03:31.610 this is going. It's about the sort order. You 00:03:31.610 --> 00:03:33.810 nailed it. If you named your file, read me in 00:03:33.810 --> 00:03:35.349 lowercase, it would just get buried in the middle 00:03:35.349 --> 00:03:38.030 of the list, lost in the noise. But if you name 00:03:38.030 --> 00:03:40.689 it, read me in all caps. The system is forced 00:03:40.689 --> 00:03:43.050 to float it right to the very top of the directory 00:03:43.050 --> 00:03:46.030 listing. Yep. That is such a brilliant, low -tech 00:03:46.030 --> 00:03:49.509 UI hack. They were capitalizing for visibility, 00:03:49.789 --> 00:03:52.289 not for emphasis. It's ingenuity born of limitation. 00:03:52.710 --> 00:03:54.590 They didn't have a pin -to -top feature, so they 00:03:54.590 --> 00:03:56.449 used the alphabet itself. And that convention 00:03:56.449 --> 00:03:59.449 was so effective that it just stuck. And we still 00:03:59.449 --> 00:04:03.430 see variations, right? Like readme .txt or, more 00:04:03.430 --> 00:04:06.030 often now, readme .chmd. Sure, for plain text 00:04:06.030 --> 00:04:10.060 or for markdown. But that core idea, the capitalized 00:04:10.060 --> 00:04:13.000 name, has survived for 50 years. Speaking of 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:15.759 50 years, I want to get into the origins. Because 00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:18.420 when I was reading through the material, I expected 00:04:18.420 --> 00:04:22.019 the history to start with, I don't know, MS -DOS. 00:04:22.339 --> 00:04:25.579 But it goes back way, way further. And it gets 00:04:25.579 --> 00:04:28.699 surprisingly literary. This is my favorite part. 00:04:29.149 --> 00:04:31.410 The source cites the New Hackers Dictionary, 00:04:31.430 --> 00:04:34.470 which is basically the folklore bible for computer 00:04:34.470 --> 00:04:36.970 science. Okay. And when you ask the old school 00:04:36.970 --> 00:04:39.810 hackers where the Read Me convention comes from, 00:04:39.970 --> 00:04:42.550 they don't talk about sorting algorithms first. 00:04:42.610 --> 00:04:44.810 They talk about Alice's adventures in Wonderland. 00:04:44.930 --> 00:04:47.829 Wait, what? Lewis Carroll? The very same. Think 00:04:47.829 --> 00:04:49.490 about when Alice falls down the rabbit hole. 00:04:49.610 --> 00:04:51.829 She finds a little cake and a bottle. What's 00:04:51.829 --> 00:04:54.649 written on them? Eat me and drink me. Exactly. 00:04:54.870 --> 00:04:57.589 Simple direct imperatives written on an object 00:04:57.589 --> 00:04:59.629 that tell you exactly how to interact with it. 00:04:59.750 --> 00:05:03.129 Early hackers loved that playful, direct instruction. 00:05:03.589 --> 00:05:05.430 So it's a little literary inside joke. Here's 00:05:05.430 --> 00:05:07.750 the magic potion. Read me to enter this weird 00:05:07.750 --> 00:05:10.589 new world. It's that intersection of whimsy and 00:05:10.589 --> 00:05:13.050 utility that really defined early hacker culture. 00:05:13.430 --> 00:05:16.149 But if we want to move from literature to actual 00:05:16.149 --> 00:05:18.709 hardware, we can pinpoint its appearance pretty 00:05:18.709 --> 00:05:22.089 specifically. The source mentions a date. November 00:05:22.089 --> 00:05:26.589 27th, 1974. Right. This is the PDP -10 era. We're 00:05:26.589 --> 00:05:28.550 talking mainframe computers that took up entire 00:05:28.550 --> 00:05:30.930 rooms. No screens, just teletypes and blinking 00:05:30.930 --> 00:05:32.810 lights. And there's an archive record from a 00:05:32.810 --> 00:05:36.290 PDP -10 mainframe from that day. It was a failsafe 00:05:36.290 --> 00:05:39.269 tape, a backup tape, with a circuit analysis 00:05:39.269 --> 00:05:42.189 program called SPICY. And right there on the 00:05:42.189 --> 00:05:48.550 tape, a file called ream .txt. 1974. Wow. So 00:05:48.550 --> 00:05:51.120 what was in it? Just good luck. Actually, pretty 00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:53.019 similar to today. It described dependencies. 00:05:53.500 --> 00:05:56.420 It noted the software required Fortran 10 version 00:05:56.420 --> 00:05:59.600 4. It listed memory requirements, about 47K. 00:05:59.699 --> 00:06:02.120 47 kilobytes. Which was a massive amount of memory 00:06:02.120 --> 00:06:04.319 back then, but the message was the same. Before 00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:06.199 you try to load this tape and waste expensive 00:06:06.199 --> 00:06:08.459 computer time, make sure your machine can handle 00:06:08.459 --> 00:06:10.279 it. It's amazing how the problems stay the same 00:06:10.279 --> 00:06:12.339 just with more gigabytes. Yeah. But there's an 00:06:12.339 --> 00:06:14.259 even more physical origin story mentioned, right? 00:06:14.480 --> 00:06:17.180 Before files on a tape. Yes, the tactile history 00:06:17.180 --> 00:06:19.629 we always forget. Before screens, programmers 00:06:19.629 --> 00:06:22.089 used punch cards. Stacks and stacks of stiff 00:06:22.089 --> 00:06:24.709 paper cards with holes in them. So your program 00:06:24.709 --> 00:06:28.189 isn't a file. It's a literal cardboard box with 00:06:28.189 --> 00:06:32.769 maybe 2 ,000 cards. If you drop that box, you've 00:06:32.769 --> 00:06:35.589 ruined your week. So how did you label it? You 00:06:35.589 --> 00:06:37.970 take a piece of paper, attach it to the top of 00:06:37.970 --> 00:06:39.790 the deck with a rubber band, and on that top 00:06:39.790 --> 00:06:43.310 sheet, you'd print... Readme in huge block letters. 00:06:43.470 --> 00:06:46.170 A literal physical readme. Exactly. It had the 00:06:46.170 --> 00:06:48.810 instructions, load this deck first, or this is 00:06:48.810 --> 00:06:51.069 the data, this is the program. It was the cover 00:06:51.069 --> 00:06:54.189 sheet. When we moved to digital files, that physical 00:06:54.189 --> 00:06:56.750 cover sheet just became the first file in the 00:06:56.750 --> 00:06:59.410 directory. That makes so much sense. And it even 00:06:59.410 --> 00:07:01.389 crossed over into the consumer world with the 00:07:01.389 --> 00:07:04.370 first Macintosh, right? It did. The early Mac 00:07:04.370 --> 00:07:07.870 system software disks included a readme. Which 00:07:07.870 --> 00:07:09.569 is important because it shows the convention 00:07:09.569 --> 00:07:11.990 jumping from the high -level engineers down to 00:07:11.990 --> 00:07:14.569 the average person. It became the way to say, 00:07:14.670 --> 00:07:16.790 here's leg -breaking info that didn't make it 00:07:16.790 --> 00:07:18.790 into the printed manual. Right, because once 00:07:18.790 --> 00:07:20.670 the manual is printed and in the box, you can't 00:07:20.670 --> 00:07:22.750 change it. But you can change the file on the 00:07:22.750 --> 00:07:24.910 disk at the last second. Exactly, the original 00:07:24.910 --> 00:07:27.269 day one patch. Okay, so we know where it came 00:07:27.269 --> 00:07:30.839 from. Let's talk about the anatomy. If I open 00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:32.860 a readme today, what am I looking at? Is there 00:07:32.860 --> 00:07:35.740 like a readme police that enforces the rules? 00:07:35.980 --> 00:07:38.379 I wish there were readme police sometimes. But 00:07:38.379 --> 00:07:40.939 no, the source says there is a total lack of 00:07:40.939 --> 00:07:43.430 formal standardization. It's the Wild West. That 00:07:43.430 --> 00:07:46.310 sounds chaotic. It can be. But conventions have 00:07:46.310 --> 00:07:48.490 emerged over time, especially from groups like 00:07:48.490 --> 00:07:51.509 the GNU Project. A really good readme today usually 00:07:51.509 --> 00:07:53.829 has a standard checklist of things. Okay, walk 00:07:53.829 --> 00:07:55.509 us through the checklist. What do I need? First, 00:07:55.629 --> 00:07:58.009 the manifest. That's just a list of all the files 00:07:58.009 --> 00:08:00.389 in the directory. It was crucial in the old days 00:08:00.389 --> 00:08:03.189 to check for disk corruption. I have five files. 00:08:03.310 --> 00:08:06.370 The list says six. Houston, we have a problem. 00:08:06.490 --> 00:08:10.220 Exactly. Next, and most importantly... Instructions. 00:08:10.319 --> 00:08:13.779 How to configure, install, and operate it. This 00:08:13.779 --> 00:08:16.600 is where most bad readmes fail. They assume you 00:08:16.600 --> 00:08:18.300 already know everything. The curse of knowledge. 00:08:18.660 --> 00:08:21.939 Then, the legal stuff. Always. Copyright and 00:08:21.939 --> 00:08:24.000 licensing. Can I copy this? Can I modify it? 00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:26.040 Yeah. In the open source world, if you don't 00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:28.459 state the license, no one can legally touch your 00:08:28.459 --> 00:08:30.779 code. And then the part no one wants to admit. 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:34.679 The problems. The bugs section. A good readme 00:08:34.679 --> 00:08:37.980 lists known issues. It's all about managing expectations. 00:08:38.539 --> 00:08:40.799 It tells you, we know this feature is broken, 00:08:40.899 --> 00:08:43.279 we're working on it. That's actually reassuring. 00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:45.460 If I find a bug and it's listed, I feel like, 00:08:45.500 --> 00:08:48.259 okay, they know. If it's not, I assume I broke 00:08:48.259 --> 00:08:50.600 it. Right, or that the developer's incompetent. 00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:53.000 It builds trust. Now, there is an interesting 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:55.139 nuance here because a readme is often talking 00:08:55.139 --> 00:08:58.159 to two different groups of people. Oh, who are 00:08:58.159 --> 00:09:00.159 groups? You've got the users and you've got the 00:09:00.159 --> 00:09:04.159 developers. For example, a news section is for 00:09:04.159 --> 00:09:07.480 the user. It says, now features a new dark mode. 00:09:07.799 --> 00:09:10.059 It's high level. And the other one. A change 00:09:10.059 --> 00:09:12.940 log. That's for the programmer. It's super detailed. 00:09:13.379 --> 00:09:15.720 Fixed memory leak in line 400 of the kernel. 00:09:15.879 --> 00:09:18.120 The readme has to serve both. It's talking to 00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:20.240 the user, the lawyer, and the developer all at 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:23.700 once. Which is why sometimes one file just isn't 00:09:23.700 --> 00:09:26.279 enough. And the read -a -me explodes into what 00:09:26.279 --> 00:09:28.720 we can call the extended universe of files. The 00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:30.559 extended universe. I like that. Because, yeah, 00:09:30.620 --> 00:09:32.940 at a big project, there's a whole family of these 00:09:32.940 --> 00:09:36.039 shouting all caps files. You split the burden. 00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:38.480 So you get authors, which is just a list of who 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:41.279 wrote the code. You get thanks, which is for 00:09:41.279 --> 00:09:43.759 acknowledgments. The credits roll. Pretty much. 00:09:44.220 --> 00:09:46.720 Then you have install. If the instructions are 00:09:46.720 --> 00:09:49.659 super complex, you'll see copying or license 00:09:49.659 --> 00:09:52.360 for the full legal text. I've seen one called 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:55.539 Toto. That's the roadmap. A wish list of planned 00:09:55.539 --> 00:09:58.340 changes or features. Okay, there's one file name 00:09:58.340 --> 00:10:00.759 I've always found funny and the source mentions 00:10:00.759 --> 00:10:03.779 it. Hacking. When I see that, I feel like I'm 00:10:03.779 --> 00:10:05.600 about to learn how to break into a bank. I know. 00:10:05.639 --> 00:10:08.100 It sounds so nefarious now. But this is where 00:10:08.100 --> 00:10:11.200 context is key. In the open source world, hacking 00:10:11.200 --> 00:10:14.600 uses the old school MIT definition. It just means 00:10:14.600 --> 00:10:17.139 playful, clever programming. So it's not how 00:10:17.139 --> 00:10:19.779 to steal passwords. No, not at all. A hacking 00:10:19.779 --> 00:10:22.580 file is a guide for contributors. It says, if 00:10:22.580 --> 00:10:24.789 you want to modify this crane. if you want to 00:10:24.789 --> 00:10:27.250 hack on it, here are the coding standards and 00:10:27.250 --> 00:10:29.570 style guides you need to follow. It's an invitation 00:10:29.570 --> 00:10:31.570 to collaborate. Precisely. And they're all in 00:10:31.570 --> 00:10:33.750 PAPs, all shouting to be seen at the top of the 00:10:33.750 --> 00:10:36.049 pile. So we've gone from punch cards to text 00:10:36.049 --> 00:10:38.769 files. But the way we get software has changed 00:10:38.769 --> 00:10:41.970 so much. We go to GitHub now. How did the readme 00:10:41.970 --> 00:10:45.070 survive that shift? This is the plot twist. The 00:10:45.070 --> 00:10:48.450 writeme hasn't just survived. It has become maybe 00:10:48.450 --> 00:10:51.110 the most important marketing asset a piece of 00:10:51.110 --> 00:10:54.110 software has. Marketing. That's a huge leap for 00:10:54.110 --> 00:10:56.669 a little text file. Think about it. When you 00:10:56.669 --> 00:10:59.230 go to a project's page on GitHub, what's the 00:10:59.230 --> 00:11:02.269 first thing you see below the file list? The 00:11:02.269 --> 00:11:05.450 description, screenshots, badges, all that. That 00:11:05.450 --> 00:11:08.169 is the readme. GitHub automatically finds it 00:11:08.169 --> 00:11:09.929 and renders it right there on the front page. 00:11:10.090 --> 00:11:12.730 It turns the text file into the project's homepage. 00:11:13.190 --> 00:11:15.409 Oh, right. That whole section is just the readme. 00:11:15.509 --> 00:11:17.990 That's it. And that changed the game. Suddenly, 00:11:18.029 --> 00:11:20.190 the ReadMe wasn't an instruction manual you read 00:11:20.190 --> 00:11:22.429 after you downloaded something. It became the 00:11:22.429 --> 00:11:24.889 landing page you see before you download. Wow. 00:11:25.210 --> 00:11:27.690 That is a huge psychological shift. It goes from 00:11:27.690 --> 00:11:30.129 user guide to sales pitch. Exactly. It's the 00:11:30.129 --> 00:11:32.330 face of the software now. If a project on GitHub 00:11:32.330 --> 00:11:35.669 has a messy or blank ReadMe, people assume the 00:11:35.669 --> 00:11:37.750 code is messy. They just click away. And they 00:11:37.750 --> 00:11:39.909 can look really nice now. It's not just blocky 00:11:39.909 --> 00:11:43.269 text. Right. That's thanks to Markdown, the MD 00:11:43.269 --> 00:11:47.110 in ReadMe MD. It lets you add formatting, links, 00:11:47.289 --> 00:11:50.110 images. GitHub basically turns it into a rich 00:11:50.110 --> 00:11:52.669 web page. So it's still just a simple text file 00:11:52.669 --> 00:11:54.889 for the developer, but it looks like a professional 00:11:54.889 --> 00:11:57.029 website to the user. And this has brought in 00:11:57.029 --> 00:11:59.090 this new idea of community health. Community 00:11:59.090 --> 00:12:01.870 health. You mean like, is the project alive or 00:12:01.870 --> 00:12:04.769 dead? Pretty much. A good readme, a contributing 00:12:04.769 --> 00:12:08.509 file, a code of conduct. They signal that a project 00:12:08.509 --> 00:12:10.950 is healthy, active, and welcoming. If they're 00:12:10.950 --> 00:12:14.669 missing, it feels abandoned. That evolution is... 00:12:14.860 --> 00:12:17.100 Just incredible. From a piece of paper on a stack 00:12:17.100 --> 00:12:20.000 of punch cards to the multimedia homepage that 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:22.159 determines the social health of a global software 00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:24.500 project. And yet the core function is still the 00:12:24.500 --> 00:12:26.799 same. It's about context. It's about fighting 00:12:26.799 --> 00:12:29.450 chaos. Let's unpack that a little. Because in 00:12:29.450 --> 00:12:31.450 a way, the README is the only thing standing 00:12:31.450 --> 00:12:34.029 between the user and total confusion. It is. 00:12:34.169 --> 00:12:36.870 Information without context is just noise. A 00:12:36.870 --> 00:12:40.429 folder full of files like by86driver .dl is meaningless 00:12:40.429 --> 00:12:42.730 unless you know what they do. The code makes 00:12:42.730 --> 00:12:45.710 it work, but the README makes it usable. Precisely. 00:12:45.730 --> 00:12:47.870 It's the human element in the machine. So we've 00:12:47.870 --> 00:12:50.250 traveled from the PDP -10 to the modern web. 00:12:50.610 --> 00:12:53.309 We learned the all caps isn't anger, it's just 00:12:53.309 --> 00:12:56.840 sorting. And that Lewis Carroll has a surprising 00:12:56.840 --> 00:12:59.159 amount of influence on all this. Eat me, drink 00:12:59.159 --> 00:13:01.899 me, read me. Simple instructions for complex 00:13:01.899 --> 00:13:04.600 worlds. As we close out, I want to leave you 00:13:04.600 --> 00:13:07.059 with a thought. We've been talking about software, 00:13:07.159 --> 00:13:09.620 but you mentioned the readme provides context 00:13:09.620 --> 00:13:12.220 in a chaotic system. It's an operating manual 00:13:12.220 --> 00:13:14.799 for the unknown. Right. So here's the question. 00:13:15.179 --> 00:13:18.559 In our own lives, in our workplaces, we're constantly 00:13:18.559 --> 00:13:21.059 overwhelming people. We drop huge project files 00:13:21.059 --> 00:13:23.919 on them. We add them to complex teams and just 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:25.960 expect them to figure it out. We give them the 00:13:25.960 --> 00:13:29.159 directory but not the readme. Exactly. We assume 00:13:29.159 --> 00:13:31.379 they know the context. So do we need to start 00:13:31.379 --> 00:13:34.220 writing readmes for ourselves? ReadmeMD for how 00:13:34.220 --> 00:13:35.940 to work with you. That's actually a brilliant 00:13:35.940 --> 00:13:39.019 idea. Here are my known bugs. I'm grumpy before 00:13:39.019 --> 00:13:42.080 coffee. Here's my changelog. I just learned a 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:44.629 new skill. Here is how to install me into a new 00:13:44.629 --> 00:13:48.269 project. A user manual for me. It would solve 00:13:48.269 --> 00:13:51.049 so many configuration errors in office communication. 00:13:51.669 --> 00:13:53.690 If everyone came with a read of me, we'd probably 00:13:53.690 --> 00:13:56.269 misunderstand each other a lot less. Something 00:13:56.269 --> 00:13:57.929 to think about the next time you open a folder 00:13:57.929 --> 00:14:00.570 and see that file shouting at you. Don't ignore 00:14:00.570 --> 00:14:03.210 it. Read it. It's trying to help. It's the most 00:14:03.210 --> 00:14:05.590 important file in the folder. Thanks for listening 00:14:05.590 --> 00:14:07.330 to the Deep Dive. We'll see you next time.