I picked up https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/1541259335 recently. It is a somewhat short program for MP3 written in a literate way. Is a very good argument for the practice.
At the same time, it is a decent argument against the practice. Most programs are not linear in the "why" and are instead many many many competing priorities for why something was done the way it was. Moreso if you consider codebases with more than a few contributors. Especially so if they are all conceptually contributing.
Which makes sense if you think of most creative books. You will have many contributors, but the narrative is usually split between a very small number of authors. Most contributions are in supporting art, editing, or general feedback. To move programming to a similar space, would require working with contributions in a similar way. (Last is clearly an assertion.)