Something similar happened to flow charts. They get unreadable after a few tens of LOC, but the managers required them. So people dutifully shipped tons of paper upstairs, and nobody ever read them. Then they were drawn after the source was written, instead of before. Then a computer program generated them straight from the source code. Then they stopped printing them, storing them on disk instead. Then the flow chart generator broke, and nobody noticed the write-only documentation was missing. Finally, some manager got the genius idea to speed up the process by not requiring flow charts anymore.
This kinda reminds me of a middle school English teacher I had who insisted on receiving both a rough draft and (a couple days later) a final draft, which had to be different, because there had to be at least some grammar/spelling mistakes in the first draft.
I was a kid who didn't make grammar/spelling mistakes. I'd just write up the paper, insert two or three errors, submit it, and then a couple days later submit the original version.
Hmm, here as well. But then would reorganize the sentences, and add details, where I think the most value of another draft is. Fixing spelling mistakes never entered my mind.
