Most usefully, I'd like to know what the consequences of doing the obvious thing are. Maybe they don't matter any more (high memory usage, cpu use, etc) and we

Most usefully, I'd like to know what the consequences of doing the obvious thing are. Maybe they don't matter any more (high memory usage, cpu use, etc) and we can trim the codebase, or it's still a NEVER CHANGE THIS OR WE LOSE OUR JOBS level issue. I'd much rather see a comment like /* * Inputs of integers near INT_MAX cause significant CPU load * in MYSQL versions 4.2 <= x < 5.8 (latest at time of writing) * Bug tracker http://mysqlbugtracker/issue/4 */ Than lolz_mysql_is_shit(foobar) As a relevant point, we've got a large comment in our codebase linking to issues and discussions of the problem of excel reading csv files containing £ symbols with particular encodings. If you didn't know the issue, having `format_excel_is_dumb(file)` wouldn't help. I am happy classifying comments as "you should have a reason to add it and keep it" rather than "bad code, always remove". Still, I suppose it's hard to generate buzz with an article that says "use your common sense" rather than repeating an old absolutist viewpoint.