To the Editor:

I am writing in response to "The Digital Hoarding Crisis" (December 7), which praises the deletion of 35 files and 20,594 lines of documentation from a software project. As someone who recognizes some of that deleted content as my own work, I find this celebration of destruction deeply troubling.

The database critiques and agricultural path planning strategies mentioned weren't "obsolete" or "digital waste" as the author claims. They represented months of careful research and analysis that documented our project's evolution and decision-making processes. These materials provided crucial context for new team members and served as a reference for why certain architectural choices were made.

The author's comparison to "lean manufacturing" misses a fundamental difference: in software, knowledge is our most valuable asset. Unlike physical inventory that costs money to store, digital documentation preserves institutional memory that is expensive to recreate.

What's most disturbing is the unilateral nature of this cleanup. No consultation with contributors, no assessment of what might be valuable to preserve. This isn't efficiency—it's disrespect for collaborative work.

Rather than celebrating such destructive practices, we should develop thoughtful archival strategies that distinguish between truly obsolete files and valuable historical documentation. Our community deserves better than having its collective knowledge erased without discussion.

Sincerely,

Margaret Chen Riverside