As an undergraduate, I wondered how it was possible to write code professionally, because I could only barely fit the semester-long programming assignment in my head. When I asked my professor about it, I got an independent study credit to learn about UML.

UML (as a representative example of thoughtful documentation) is a partial answer. But actually a much larger part is that with practice I can hold a lot more code in my head. Today, that semester project seems trivial and if I see a stack trace I can tell you how to fix the bug that caused that exception to get thrown.

As a senior dev, I’d answer “how do you remember what your code does?” with

1. As you work, you get better at just remembering
2. As you find patterns and follow them, you’ll have less to remember (I bet I know what the downloadUnpackUpdate() method does!)
3. As you do the first two, you’ll learn to recognize when comments are helpful

You should be suspicious of American-owned media, but it’s not the case they they are running state-issued propaganda at all times.

Rather, the media is following the interests of its owners: American oligarchs. One of their primary interests is “get more money” and any headline that draws eyeballs serves that end.

So: at least 4 years, probably longer :/