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Besides, code speaks to the compiler/runtime; comments speak to the human. - The machine need to know HOW something should happen. That's code. - The human ne

Besides, code speaks to the compiler/runtime; comments speak to the human. - The machine need to know HOW something should happen. That's code. - The human needs to understand WHY that thing should happen that way. These are two different objectives, and good quality code weaves the two in the appropriate measure. Having said that, I don't believe all code should be reduced to the subset that a junior dev can understand. Keep it simple when possible, yes. But don't limit yourself, otherwise it's just a shift to verbosity, eating into the finite attention span within the brain. Rather, if the intent is properly documented, then the junior devs can still work on the parts of the code they understand, and reach out to a senior dev when they need to touch the part they don't understand, because even if they don't quite grasp the "how", they can follow the "why" in the code.

diggan 9y ago
> Besides, code speaks to the compiler/runtime; comments speak to the human. > - The machine need to know HOW something should happen. That's code. > - The human needs to understand WHY that thing should happen that way. While valuable, some people argue that they should be the same (granted, I mostly deal with high-abstraction language). For example most (all?) lisps have homoiconicity which means the computer and you see the code the same.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Homoiconicity is irrelevant - comment text has no meaning to the computer but can do for the human. Computers have a hard time with "why".
ithkuil 9y ago
yeah. I've seen a lot of comments like: // Sleep for 10 minutes sleep(15*60) Unfortunately, the compiler cannot check your comments. Don't put facts that are better looked up in the actual code and that they only risk getting out of sync with the code.
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  And to keep with the theme of self-documenting, the self-documenting version of that would be: NAP_LENGTH_MINUTES = 15; ... sleep(NAP_LENGTH_MINUTES*60);
  - Clubber 9y ago
    Still not good enough. Why is this nap function in there? If I want to make it faster and didn't know, I would just remove all references to it. What did I break? Can't tell by that variable name.
    - BoorishBears 9y ago
      a) Self documenting doesn't mean no comments b) I didn't give enough context for your specific commentary to really make sense. I mean, when did I even say this is a function? It's a snippet of pseudo-code not a code sample. c) Are you really running around programs ripping out references because you don't know what they do? I'd advise working on your definition of optimization before worrying about whether your code documents itself.
      - Clubber 9y ago
        >Self documenting doesn't mean no comments Agree. I assumed you were giving an example of self documenting code that doesn't require comments. >I didn't give enough context for your specific commentary to really make sense. I mean, when did I even say this is a function? It's a snippet of pseudo-code not a code sample. Yes, sorry. I've just spend the last month digging into shitty code, so I'm in dealing with shitty code mode. My point was the name you gave it didn't give any intent as to why the application would be napping, which is probably the most important information. Of course, as you said, the owner function could be named properly in that way. >Are you really running around programs ripping out references because you don't know what they do? I'd advise working on your definition of optimization before worrying about whether your code documents itself. It's pretty common for developers to try to figure out why an application is running slow. If I saw that (sleep function), it would be an obvious sign of why it's slow. If I saw that I would immediately see it as a potential target of improvement. Unfortunately with just the label you provided and a poorly named owning function, I wouldn't have enough information to determine if it was removable because, again, I don't know why it is napping. I would then have to spend several minutes/hours/days ($$$) determine what the hell that nap was for. This could all be solved by a comment providing intent. I would suggest instead of NAP_LENGTH_MINUTES, it would be NAP_TO_AVOID_PROCESS_COLLISION_LENGTH_MINUTES or something. Of course, naming things properly is one of the hardest things in computer science. :) There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. -- Phil Karlton
darkerside 9y ago
Wrong. Machine code is for the computer. Human readable high-level languages were designed specifically for people.
- wolco 9y ago
  Different newspapers write to different education levels. In your local paper you may find writing that a grade 8 student could understand. In your industry specific journal the writing may be at a grade 12 level. Not all code should or can be human readable by all.
  - darkerside 9y ago
    Right, and some people will work in C, while others will work in Python. That doesn't quite line up with a "grade level", but I agree that different writing styles (or languages) suit different purposes best. But I assure you, our computers would "think" that we are all idiots for using just about any high level language feature. We write things in loops (computer unrolls it), we give variables readable names so we can think about them (computer assigns it a memory address instead), and we build meaningful abstractions (computer sighs and turns it into meaningless 1s and 0s). So literally all high level languages are written for us feeble-minded HUMANS! Not for computers.

diggan 9y ago

> Besides, code speaks to the compiler/runtime; comments speak to the human. > - The machine need to know HOW something should happen. That's code. > - The human needs to understand WHY that thing should happen that way. While valuable, some people argue that they should be the same (granted, I mostly deal with high-abstraction language). For example most (all?) lisps have homoiconicity which means the computer and you see the code the same.

pjc50 9y ago
Homoiconicity is irrelevant - comment text has no meaning to the computer but can do for the human. Computers have a hard time with "why".

ithkuil 9y ago

yeah. I've seen a lot of comments like: // Sleep for 10 minutes sleep(15*60) Unfortunately, the compiler cannot check your comments. Don't put facts that are better looked up in the actual code and that they only risk getting out of sync with the code.

BoorishBears 9y ago
And to keep with the theme of self-documenting, the self-documenting version of that would be: NAP_LENGTH_MINUTES = 15; ... sleep(NAP_LENGTH_MINUTES*60);
- Clubber 9y ago
  Still not good enough. Why is this nap function in there? If I want to make it faster and didn't know, I would just remove all references to it. What did I break? Can't tell by that variable name.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    a) Self documenting doesn't mean no comments b) I didn't give enough context for your specific commentary to really make sense. I mean, when did I even say this is a function? It's a snippet of pseudo-code not a code sample. c) Are you really running around programs ripping out references because you don't know what they do? I'd advise working on your definition of optimization before worrying about whether your code documents itself.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      >Self documenting doesn't mean no comments Agree. I assumed you were giving an example of self documenting code that doesn't require comments. >I didn't give enough context for your specific commentary to really make sense. I mean, when did I even say this is a function? It's a snippet of pseudo-code not a code sample. Yes, sorry. I've just spend the last month digging into shitty code, so I'm in dealing with shitty code mode. My point was the name you gave it didn't give any intent as to why the application would be napping, which is probably the most important information. Of course, as you said, the owner function could be named properly in that way. >Are you really running around programs ripping out references because you don't know what they do? I'd advise working on your definition of optimization before worrying about whether your code documents itself. It's pretty common for developers to try to figure out why an application is running slow. If I saw that (sleep function), it would be an obvious sign of why it's slow. If I saw that I would immediately see it as a potential target of improvement. Unfortunately with just the label you provided and a poorly named owning function, I wouldn't have enough information to determine if it was removable because, again, I don't know why it is napping. I would then have to spend several minutes/hours/days ($$$) determine what the hell that nap was for. This could all be solved by a comment providing intent. I would suggest instead of NAP_LENGTH_MINUTES, it would be NAP_TO_AVOID_PROCESS_COLLISION_LENGTH_MINUTES or something. Of course, naming things properly is one of the hardest things in computer science. :) There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. -- Phil Karlton

darkerside 9y ago

Wrong. Machine code is for the computer. Human readable high-level languages were designed specifically for people.

wolco 9y ago
Different newspapers write to different education levels. In your local paper you may find writing that a grade 8 student could understand. In your industry specific journal the writing may be at a grade 12 level. Not all code should or can be human readable by all.
- darkerside 9y ago
  Right, and some people will work in C, while others will work in Python. That doesn't quite line up with a "grade level", but I agree that different writing styles (or languages) suit different purposes best. But I assure you, our computers would "think" that we are all idiots for using just about any high level language feature. We write things in loops (computer unrolls it), we give variables readable names so we can think about them (computer assigns it a memory address instead), and we build meaningful abstractions (computer sighs and turns it into meaningless 1s and 0s). So literally all high level languages are written for us feeble-minded HUMANS! Not for computers.