The “software as theory” idea is helpful - thanks OP. Right now I’m dealing with some devilishly difficult GPU code, and I now understand that I’ve been working to reverse engineer the authors’ theory from their code. With much effort, I achieved a gratifying epiphany, and the code suddenly became clear! (Perhaps I developed a theory related to but not identical to that of the original authors.) Fortunately, I have an enlightened manager, and he was patient with the “theory building” process. Software degrades to garbage when a series of successive developers apply changes to it without a cogent theory. The process is self-reinforcing; the more degraded it becomes, the harder it is to develop a useful and accurate theory.