First Sip Today’s coffee is a cherry vanilla blend from Coffee Beanery . At first sip, it’s sweet. Clear. Simple. But if you slow down, you notice layers — the balance, the aftertaste, the structure underneath the flavor. Programs are the same way. You can skim the surface and think you understand them. Or you can sit with them long enough to see what’s actually holding them together. Most developers stop at the first sip. Familiarity Feels Like Understanding There’s a stage in every developer’s growth where reading code becomes comfortable. You can: Follow the indicators Understand the file I/O Trace the subprocedures Step through it in debug You think: “This makes sense.” But comfort is not comprehension. Familiarity means: You recognize the syntax. Understanding means: You grasp the intent, constraints, history, and consequences. On IBM i , that distinction matters more than almost anywhere else. Because many of our programs: Have...