Digital hoarding and the beauty of decay

In a recent discussion about the value of deleting code, one specific habit kept coming up: leaving blocks of commented-out code in a file, just in case we might need it later. We all know we should not do it. We have version control systems that remember every keystroke we have ever made. Yet, we leave that graveyard code right in the middle of our active files. We do it because deleting feels permanent, and keeping it feels safe. But in reality, it just transfers the cognitive load to the next person trying to read the file. This habit of hoarding code is just a symptom of a much larger problem. We are a generation of digital hoarders. The cognitive load of "read-it-later" Look outside your IDE. Look at your browser with its forty open tabs. Look at your read-it-later app, filled with hundreds of articles, tutorials, and deep dives that you saved months ago. We hoard this information with the best of intentions. We tell ourselves that we will read it this weekend. But we rarely do. I