Aragorn Battle Cry Captures Developers Putting Off Documentation For Some Future Day

Level 1: Do It Tomorrow

Imagine you have a big chore or homework assignment that you really don’t want to do. You stand up and make a huge, dramatic announcement: “One day I’ll do this homework... but not today!” Everyone giggles, because you’re acting like a brave knight refusing an enemy, when really you’re just saying you’ll do your homework later. This meme is doing the same thing, but with computer programmers and the task of writing documentation (which is basically writing down instructions or explanations for their code). It’s funny because the programmer is acting like writing docs is a giant battle to fight in the future, boldly declaring they won’t do it right now. We laugh because we all know the feeling of saying “I’ll do it tomorrow” for something we should probably do today.

Level 2: Not Today, Documentation

This meme uses a famous scene from The Lord of the Rings, where Aragorn gives a passionate pre-battle speech. In the original, he’s rallying an army with the line “A day may come when the courage of men fails... but it is not this day!” The meme swaps in documentation as the thing everyone keeps putting off. So instead of courage failing, it’s developers saying “One day we’ll write the docs, but hey, not today!”

In plainer terms, it’s highlighting how developers often procrastinate (delay doing something) when it comes to writing documentation. Documentation in software is any written text that explains the code, how to use a system, or how something was designed. It can be things like README files in a repository, comments in the code, user manuals, or internal wiki pages describing how to deploy the app. Good documentation is super helpful for other developers (and your future self) because it tells you why and how things were done without having to dive directly into the code or bother a busy teammate with questions. It’s a key part of good DeveloperExperience_DX – if you join a project and everything is well-documented, it feels like someone left you a map instead of making you wander a foreign land alone.

However, there’s a well-known DocumentationAversion in tech culture – many coders find writing docs boring or lower priority compared to writing code. It’s a bit like having a plate of veggies on the side of a juicy burger; we know it’s good for us, but we often save it for last (or skip it entirely 🙈). Teams frequently say “We’ll add documentation later” as they rush to build features or fix bugs. “Later” keeps getting pushed further and further out because there’s always another bug or feature to deal with first. This habit creates a DocumentationGap – the software keeps evolving, but the explanations and guides never get written or updated. New team members come in and have to ask a lot of questions or read the code line-by-line to understand it, because there’s no guidebook.

The meme text “BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY!” in big bold letters perfectly captures the almost comical defiance developers have. It’s like the team heroically declares they will not be writing docs today, almost as if refusing an enemy in battle. Of course, in reality, the only “enemy” here is our own procrastination. Every developer chuckling at this meme recognizes that scene: maybe the project manager asks, “Hey, can we get some documentation on this module?” and the dev team dramatically responds (at least in their heads), “Not today! We have code to write and fires to fight!”

This is tagged as DocumentationHumor and DeveloperHumor because it’s a funny take on a real DeveloperPainPoint. It’s relatable: most programmers have at some point left documentation for “later.” The ProcrastinationHumor hits home – who hasn’t delayed an unpleasant task, right? And by using the grandiose Aragorn speech, the meme exaggerates the situation for comedic effect. Writing some docs is not actually an epic battle, but if you’ve ever stared at an empty documentation template at 6 PM on a Friday, it feels like a daunting quest you’d rather postpone. This meme says, “Sure, we’ll fight that battle... just not right now.”

In short, the image of a warrior king declaring “Not this day!” about documentation is a funny metaphor. It’s explaining, in a dramatic way, that developers keep putting off writing documentation. We all laugh because it’s true – we’ve all been in the position of Aragorn, sword raised, valiantly deciding to delay the not-so-fun task for another day.

Level 3: Swords Not Words

"THERE MAY COME A DAY WHEN WE'LL WRITE THE DOCUMENTATION... BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY!"
In this epic parody, a Lord of the Rings lotr_reference is repurposed to poke fun at DocumentationAversion among developers. The meme pictures Aragorn rallying his troops, but instead of talking about the courage of men, he's dramatically deferring the task of writing docs. It's a battle_speech_format applied to a very mundane programmer habit: pushing documentation off to some mythical future date. And oh, is this a familiar battlefield for seasoned devs.

On engineering teams, "We'll write the docs later" is basically a running joke (or a tragic mantra). Everyone knows documentation is vital for knowledge transfer and DeveloperExperience (DX), yet it keeps getting postponed under the rallying cry of urgent features and looming deadlines. This creates a DocumentationGap – a chasm between the code and any helpful explanation of how things work. The humor here is that the team is treating the act of writing docs like a world-saving battle to be fought someday, channeling Aragorn's heroic battle cry to glorify their procrastination.

From a senior engineer's perspective, this meme hits on multiple painful truths:

• Knowledge Debt: Every time we skip writing docs, we're accumulating knowledge debt. Much like technical debt in code, this DocumentationGap will come back to haunt us. It's the reason you find yourself spelunking through commit history at 3 AM, cursing that there isn't a single README or comment explaining a critical piece of logic.
• "Not Today" Culture: There's an unspoken culture of DeveloperProcrastination around documentation. Teams often promise “we’ll document this in the next sprint” only to repeat the same promise later. The top caption “There may come a day when we'll write the documentation” is that empty promise every dev has heard (or made) at some point. The bottom caption “But it is not this day!” perfectly captures the defiant last-minute decision: Nope, not gonna write docs today either. It’s equal parts comedy and collective guilt.
• Shared Trauma: This joke lands because it’s an everyday DeveloperPainPoint. RelatableHumor like this draws on countless real scenarios: a critical system goes down and the only documentation is a half-finished Confluence page from 2017; a new dev asks how an API works and the team lead vaguely waves at the codebase saying "it’s self-documenting" 😅. We’ve all lived through the confusion and frustration that results. The meme is basically a battle cry for every dev who has boldly charged ahead coding, sword in hand, while leaving the poor documentation behind in the dust.

Why do smart, experienced developers keep falling into this trap? The cynical truth: incentives and culture. Writing docs doesn’t show immediate ROI in most companies – you don’t get flashy demos or quick accolades for a well-written guide. On the other hand, shipping features and closing tickets gets all the glory. Under constant pressure to deliver, teams treat documentation as a nice-to-have that will get done someday (just not this day). This is essentially knowledge-transfer risk incarnate: all the critical know-how lives only in developers’ heads (or in a flurry of Slack messages), making onboarding new team members or handling emergencies a nightmare. The bus factor (how many team members can get “hit by a bus” before all knowledge is lost) stays perilously low when nothing’s written down. The meme’s dramatic tone underscores how absurd it is that something as un-glamorous as writing docs gets postponed as if it were an apocalyptic showdown.

In practice, code without documentation is like a legend with no written lore. The code might be running, but future maintainers (or even your forgetful future self) have to decipher cryptic logic without any guidance. Senior devs know this pain too well, which is why they smirk at this meme. It’s funny because it’s true: countless times we’ve all said, “Not today,” and kicked the documentation can down the road. We laugh, perhaps a bit darkly, because deep down we know that day when docs finally get written often never comes… until disaster strikes and frantic knowledge sharing becomes the real last stand.

def defeat_sauron(ring):
    """
    TODO: document this epic function when peace reigns in Middle-Earth.
    """
    # ... complex logic to save the world ...
    return True

Above: A tongue-in-cheek code snippet reflecting reality – a placeholder TODO in a docstring promising to explain things eventually. This is the programmer’s equivalent of Aragorn’s pledge: “We’ll write it, just not today.” The joke is that such comments can persist for years, surviving every code review like a stubborn old wizard.

Ultimately, the DocumentationHumor in this meme serves as both catharsis and caution. It’s a shared acknowledgement that writing docs often feels like a battle we keep postponing. By framing it as a heroic call to arms, the meme lets veteran developers chuckle at their own foibles. After all, if you’re going to put off a critical task, you might as well do it with some theatrical flair. Not this day, indeed.