I often work with code bases developed in academic circles. I.e. written by non-c.s. students. Of course they are not experienced programmers, how can they be,

I often work with code bases developed in academic circles. I.e. written by non-c.s. students. Of course they are not experienced programmers, how can they be, it's often their first real software work. There is no professional code review, the code is sometimes beyond ugly, fragile. Bugs get fixed by the next generation... I just ignore all comments. Again, it's not their fault, it is a given just from the situation. But in this situation, it's much better to teach them to write readable code first. And not to trust any comment already in the code.