I'm not going to argue that you should not document your code, but two things come to mind:
1) With the backup example- you have indeed moved complexity elsewhere, but the idea of that kind of setup is you logically separate complexity into a hierarchy so that the proper segment can be rapidly located, and is easy to comprehend because it is isolated, and small chunks of complexity are not all that hard to understand.
2) Every example of well written self-documenting code I've ever seen is pretty much superior to the alternative in every way, with the possible exception of small performance hits. It's generally a good goal to shoot for, whether you document your code or not.
1) With the backup example- you have indeed moved complexity elsewhere, but the idea of that kind of setup is you logically separate complexity into a hierarchy so that the proper segment can be rapidly located, and is easy to comprehend because it is isolated, and small chunks of complexity are not all that hard to understand.
2) Every example of well written self-documenting code I've ever seen is pretty much superior to the alternative in every way, with the possible exception of small performance hits. It's generally a good goal to shoot for, whether you document your code or not.