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>The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation Hasn't this always been the case for young programmers? Seems you
by jcbeard 10y ago
>The trend in programming lately seems to be less to no comments and less to no documentation
Hasn't this always been the case for young programmers? Seems you don't comment until you have to go back to code you wrote yourself a year later and make major changes....you then realize you should have documented it, either inline step-by-step or as a proper doxygen/javadoc style.
I can thank Dr. Leitner (CS 50/51) for enforcing comments in assignments. Took programming courses as an undergrad (I wasn't a CS major, but a Bio/Int'l studies one) in C, no documentation required...code was checked for correctness only. Leitner had his TA's go through and take off points for code that wasn't documented...which needless to say got me in the habit of documenting.
>It really comes down to laziness.
Not so sure. Laziness or lack of good habits? Perhaps a mixture of both.
- levelist_com 10y agoFunny enough, I had a C & C++ prof deduct points for comments with the argument that they were redundant and that the code should be self documenting. Then again, this is from a guy who never handed back assignments until the end of the semester and by then couldn't remember why he graded you the way he did. Would just respond with "you didn't understand the material".
- jcbeard 10y agothat's crap. self documenting code sometimes works...but not always. I love people that hand me HDL and say "it's self documenting." Then you open it, and wire names are "x_1245_to_y." Happened all the time when my students would turn in assignments. That stopped after they realized I graded the documentation too :).
- levelist_com 10y agoI agree and chose to take the deductions rather than avoid writing comments. By that point I had already been in the industry and I knew better; he has never left academia.