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Re: [OT] Commenting source code

On 8/27/03 8:39 AM, M. Uli Kusterer didst favor us with:

> At 2:33 Uhr -0500 27.08.2003, Bryan Pietrzak wrote:
>> And with modern syntax coloring, isn't it just easier to skim the
>> blue colored functions and whatever-colored types and constants?
>> (You do have all of your carbon symbols entered as a custom keywords
>> right? It's easy to do and very helpful!)
>
> It isn't. I'm stuck with Project Builder :-(

Oh dear.
>
>> I've worked in team environments for the past decade and I can say
>> without a doubt that it's much easier to read and understand "clean"
>> code with no comments than it is to wade through "messy" (of course,
>> 'messy' is my definition ;) code with lots of comments from half a
>> dozen different people with initials and dates and version numbers
>> and whatnot and have 75% of the comments just be flat out wrong.
>
> Well, I guess if your programmers did what I'm lobbying for, you
> wouldn't have that problem.

If people always did "the right thing" we wouldn't have a lot of problems in
this world, from bugs in software to traffic accidents, but you just can't
count on that. You can't idiot-proof *anything*, but some things are more
susceptible to human error than others.

> Because I (re-)write the comments
> whenever I change anything in the code. And I think you should teach
> programmers the importance of comments (*and* sensible variable
> names, *and* self-documenting code), instead of working towards their
> lazyness by ripping out the comments they write.

I think it's more often feeling pressured to get something done and
perceiving that they don't have time. Plus, if they're accustomed to writing
code that doesn't need a lot of comments, they may just not think if it
every time when they're in a hurry.

Larry
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References: 
 >Re: [OT] Commenting source code (From: "M. Uli Kusterer" <email@hidden>)



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