> there was a koan about the progression of someone's Java program from beginner to intermediate, to expert to master to enlightened. The code for the enlighten

> there was a koan about the progression of someone's Java program from beginner to intermediate, to expert to master to enlightened. The code for the enlightened looked the same as the beginner. Mmm I've been programming for 30 years across a lot of languages. My code doesn't look the same as it did when I was a beginner. Sure has flopped around a lot though. Take comments: - When I started, I used no comments (because I was ignorant) - Then I put comments everywhere because someone told me it was good practice - Then someone said comments are a sign your functions are too long and poorly named. So I went back to no comments for a bit. But I sort of hated the resulting code - functions were too small and it still wasn't "obvious" no matter how cleverly I named my functions. - So then I had a few comments here and there, wherever my code wasn't "obvious". - Then I tried literate programming, and my code was in small islands amidst an essay of comment. That was fun, but it didn't last. These days I use comments for 2 purposes: to document my APIs, and to write little letters to my future self. Eg: // This code looks wrong at first glance, but its actually correct. // Here's why: ...