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Fwiw I've written some Real C++, think, audio encoders/decoders for voice recognition for 1B MAUs on the server, audio encoder on 2B devices. Each and every ti

Fwiw I've written some Real C++, think, audio encoders/decoders for voice recognition for 1B MAUs on the server, audio encoder on 2B devices. Each and every time there was just insane excuses that boiled down to only a few people wanted to write C++ and they found infinite ways to justify not doing things, like all us humans do. My favorite was the "don't write comments because as soon as you do they're out of date." Even though this is recognizably trollish tripe at the extreme it was implemented, I still find it hard to ignore that brainworm in my day to day coding.

Retric 3y ago
I think that’s a common mutation of the far more useful and therefore relevant “Don’t trust comments” which everyone learns at some point.
- citrin_ru 3y ago
  “Don’t trust people” is a heuristic to avoid being scammed. But it is much nicer to live in a society where you can trust most of the people. The same way it is nice to work with code base where you can trust comments by default. Which is the case for many open source projects.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Personally it’s always the programs you can generally trust that end up reinforcing the idea. On average you may be far better off trusting comments but that one time they fail you is all the worse because of that trust. It’s the same deal with compilers and computer hardware. They work so well that they become a blind spot, and yet I’ve had both fail me.
dspillett 3y ago
> My favorite was the "don't write comments because as soon as you do they're out of date." A better version of that is “if the code and comments disagree, there is a good chance that both are wrong”. If code and comments get out of sync, at best someone has been careless, and you need to be on the lookout for more carelessness in changes made at the time. At worst changes have been made without fully understanding what is going on, so there is a huge can of edge-case worms about to burst open.

Retric 3y ago

I think that’s a common mutation of the far more useful and therefore relevant “Don’t trust comments” which everyone learns at some point.

citrin_ru 3y ago
“Don’t trust people” is a heuristic to avoid being scammed. But it is much nicer to live in a society where you can trust most of the people. The same way it is nice to work with code base where you can trust comments by default. Which is the case for many open source projects.
- Retric 3y ago
  Personally it’s always the programs you can generally trust that end up reinforcing the idea. On average you may be far better off trusting comments but that one time they fail you is all the worse because of that trust. It’s the same deal with compilers and computer hardware. They work so well that they become a blind spot, and yet I’ve had both fail me.

dspillett 3y ago

> My favorite was the "don't write comments because as soon as you do they're out of date." A better version of that is “if the code and comments disagree, there is a good chance that both are wrong”. If code and comments get out of sync, at best someone has been careless, and you need to be on the lookout for more carelessness in changes made at the time. At worst changes have been made without fully understanding what is going on, so there is a huge can of edge-case worms about to burst open.