I said I don't understand it, not that I couldn't.

I don't because I haven't needed to. Understanding just a few hundred lines has been enough for my needs.

> I said I don't understand it, not that I couldn't.

When your main goal to just get on with solving your actual problems, these are the same thing.

But he can, and pretty quickly. That’s unlike most programs, which are more or less unintelligible to those not working on them.

Right, but "pretty quickly" is relative :D

I'm not a C programmer, so it would probably personally take me days, maybe weeks to fully grok 5K SLOC of C. Still, it is potentially possible if I made the effort, unlike with other programs, like you say.

It's a testament to the quality of the original C code that I was able to configure and use st and other suckless tools with my limited experience. An experienced C developer would probably find it a breeze.