That is not the hallmark of literate programming, but the hallmark bad/unhelpful code comments or docs. Like, you can also have bad/unhelpful function names or unclean and tangled implementations.
"TeX: The Program" is a joy to read.
"TeX: The Program" is a joy to read.
You could theoretically write a literate program that is nothing but code, if the code is so readable that it doesn’t need explaining. The distinction is that it is “human first” over “computer first”.